The Capitol Pressroom for July 19, 2012

 

AG Schneiderman…Gas wells…transparency…Frank Mauro
It happened again.    Syracuse man on “bath salts” holds knife to 5-year-old boy’s throat during random attack, police say (Syracuse Post-Standard).   They are dangerous, but technically not illegal.   Synthetic drugs like bath salts are being sold at head shops around the state under the guise of “herbal incenses”.   Rather than allowing the epidemic of drug use to continue though,  AG Eric Schneiderman filed a flurry of restraining orders against the shops for violating the state’s labeling laws.   He joins us to discuss the his innovative approach to solving the problem.
We heard EJ McMahon’s analysis of the State Budget Crisis Task Force written by former LG Richard Ravitch.  Today we hear from another perspective:  Frank Mauro of the Fiscal Policy Institute joins us with his thoughts on the report’s conclusions. 
According to another environmental group, there is more evidence that the NY DEC isn’t doing an adequate job inspecting the oil and gas wells already in New York State. Nadia Steinzor of Earthworks will have details.
It has come to light this week that Governor Cuomo prefers texting to email because email can be hacked; others point out that email can be subject to FOIL while texting which produces no paper trail is not.   Susan Lerner the Executive Director of Common Cause weighs in on this issue, as well as just how transparent she thinks government needs to be.