...Slottje warned municipal officials to avoid getting trapped into thinking they have to provide road use agreements....The biggest problem Slottje sees facing municipalities is the increased erosion of enforcement of environmental regulations. “So we’re swinging back to protecting the environment through property rights and home rule,” she said.

...the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks.

Protestors outside the Buffalo offices of the Department of Environmental Conservation today called for an executive order by Governor Andrew Cuomo to define fracking fluid as a hazardous waste and ban its treatment by municipal facilities...

Sens. Tony Avella, D-Whitestone, Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, and Joseph Addabbo, D-Queens, introduced a package of bills April 11 that includes three bills for tighter regulations and transparency for oil and gas drilling and a bill by Avella to ban hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, in New York State.