Symbolic

In what is considered a symbolic gesture, Rochester, NY’s city council voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend by one year a moratorium on natural gas exploration and extraction activities, and in particular, hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed a bill that calls for a ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on Wednesday, a largely symbolic gesture but one that makes the Green Mountain State the first in the nation to outlaw the practice.

New Jersey officials have told the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) that the state might withhold its dues to the organization if it doesn’t enact rules governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the Delaware River Basin by its next meeting in September.

In what amounts to a largely symbolic gesture, the elected Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday night to support a resumption of drilling off its Southern California coast. The board agreed to write to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to reverse the state’s decades-long opposition to any additional drilling.

Alliance Pipeline Project declared it has come of age within itspeer group of Canadian natural gas transporters with a symbolicshuffle in its executive suite. Dennis Cornelson was replaced asAlliance president by the organization’s chairman since 1997,Norman Gish. Cornelson, a specialist in project and businessdevelopment rather than corporate administration, had said allalong he expected to leave when Alliance matured into atransportation company. The Alliance board of directors describedGish as an ideal choice. His industry experience has been as asenior executive of Canadian oil and gas-field service andproduction companies, the sector that launched Alliance againstfierce opposition by the pipeline establishment. He was presidentof North Canadian Oils, a leading gas production and marketinghouse when it was merged in 1993 into Norcen Energy Resources (nowthe Canadian arm of Union Pacific Resources). Gish also has arecord in other fields described as grooming him well for a role atthe helm of a pipeline. He has been a regulator, serving aschairman of the British Columbia Energy Commission in 1977-80. Hehas also been a professional diplomat. A lawyer, Gish started outas a trade commissioner, serving in Hong Kong and Ottawa in the1960s.