“Blakeman says he will cut utility rates in half by signing an "emergency order" lifting New York's fracking ban”
New York's high-volume hydraulic fracturing ban is no longer an executive action a governor can undo alone. Cuomo's 2014 ban was administrative, but Part WW of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2020 (the FY2021 budget) wrote it into Environmental Conservation Law §23-0501(3): no permits may be issued for wells using high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Repealing that requires the Legislature, and Hochul said on NY1 on Sept. 15 that fracking is "illegal under state law." The only executive route is Executive Law §29-a, which lets a governor temporarily suspend a statute during a declared state disaster emergency, in 30-day increments, only where suspension is necessary to cope with the disaster; using it to restart gas drilling would be novel and almost certainly litigated. The rate claim is separate and unsupported: no analysis was cited showing in-state fracking would halve utility bills, and WXXI notes NYISO attributes current rate pressure to gas prices, aging infrastructure and tightening supply. Rated mostly false: a governor cannot lift the codified ban by order, and the halving figure has no cited basis. Re-rate if the campaign specifies the legal mechanism or publishes a rate analysis.