Good Monday morning. Here’s a glance at opinion content published over the weekend:
Saturday, July 23
We published a pair of commentary pieces that probed whether or not the federal Enviornmental Protection Agency should enact a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial practice used for extracting natural gas from bedrock. In New York, where drillers would like to extract gas from Marcellus shale deposits, the state Department of Environmental Conservation continues its review of the practice.
Fracking’s harm to the environment is overstated, Andrew P. Morriss, professor of business at the University of Alabama
Fracking’s ills are known, real, Arnold J. Mann, author of “They’re Poisoning Us! From the Gulf War to the Gulf of Mexico, An Investigative Report.”
Sunday, July 24
Gay marriage: Editorial
We herald the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. We write:
… New York’s giant step toward equality, though, is hamstrung by federal regulations that still restrict the rights of people based on their sexual orientation. Change, though, is coming.
President Barack Obama, who has said his view on same-sex marriage is “evolving” — he has supported civil unions — last week announced he would back the legislative repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that restricts certain rights to heterosexual couples and tramples on states’ rights to govern civil marriage law. On Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta officially ended the ill-conceived 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that forced gays and lesbians to lie in order to serve their country. …
Westchester County housing settlement
We published a pair of Community Views on Westchester County’s $62 million affordable housing settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; the settlement stipulates that the county play a role in building 750 units of affordable housing, most of them in overwhelmingly white communities. County Executive Rob Astorino says his administration is now at an impasse with HUD.
Only developers win under housing settlement, Susan Konig, former Croton-on-Hudson village trustee and candidate for the Westchester County Board of Legislators in District 9
Stop fighting, start craftiing landmark housing deal, Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, Inc.
Monday, July 25
Hudson River water quality: Commentary
Michael J. Pointing, vice president and general manager of United Water New York, argues in favor of his utility’s Haverstraw Water Supply Project, which would create a water-treatment plant on the Hudson.
French-American School plan: Commentary
John Sheenhan, vice president of the Gedney Association, argues against the French American School’s plan to construct a new campus on the former Ridgeway Country Club property. Sheehan replies to a July 16 Community View by Mischa Zabotin, chairman of the French-American School of New York board of trustees.
