Sure sounds like a candidate:
Former Gov. Ed Rendell told a group of environmentalists that he believes natural gas drilling can be done safely, but he would back a continued delay in drilling along the Delaware River.
“I would support putting a moratorium on the Delaware Basin right now,” Rendell said. “But we’ve gotta look at it and continue to go forward. We can’t just say stop, because stop would mean more petroleum, more coal-fired power plants.”
Rendell spoke at a clean energy conference sponsored by PennFuture in downtown Philadelphia Friday. He was responding to a question from Ralph Kisberg, with the Responsible Drilling Alliance. Kisberg wants the state to slow down the drilling boom in order to study environmental effects.
Rendell jumping on the Delaware Basin fracking moratorium bandwagon puts down a nice heavy left anchor in the fracking debate. The more we hear activists and politicians talking moratoriums, the more political space moderate Democrats have to support a fairly high severance tax.
(Thanks: Susan Phillips)
