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At the same time liberal Upstate New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey, 71, championed strict control over gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, his wife lobbied for a Texas-based landmen association whose members represent gas drillers securing leases from New York property owners. Hinchey claimed that he was unaware of his wife’s lobbying on behalf of the landmen.

For at least two years of their marriage, Hinchey’s wife, Allison Lee, 47, who was previously his district office representative and administrative aide, represented members of the Forth Worth-based American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL). AAPL members came to New York to work for energy companies acquiring gas leases from property owners.

Hinchey, considered a pro-environment liberal, was one of two congressmen who cautioned against rushing natural gas drilling in New York – the other was Congressman Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) who resigned over allegations about his behavior toward male office staff.

Allison Lee ran Hinchey’s district office before the pair become romantically involved and married in 2006. The former radio reporter turned lobbyist joined Patricia Lynch Associates Inc., one of the state’s top lobbying firms in Albany. The marriage was Hinchey’s third and her second.

During a video interview last month in his Washington office about Marcellus Shale issues and his wife representing the AAPL, Hinchey said he was unaware that Lee lobbied on behalf of landmen. “I don’t know if you did know about your wife’s involvement with landmen,” said a DCBureau reporter.

“No,” Hinchey responded tersely.

His press secretary, Mike Morosi, later said the question about her involvement with landmen was “offensive,” and the next day, he and two other senior staff members complained that the question was unfair since their boss had an outstanding environmental record. “I didn’t necessarily think it was a fair question to begin with,” Morosi said.

Despite repeated attempts to talk to her, Lee has not responded to interview requests.

Larry Haskell, former head of the Joint Landowners Coalition – which consisted of 24 neighborhood coalitions from nine south-central counties in New York and represented over 15,000 households when Haskell led the Coalition – said landmen have used “coercion, threats and forceful behavior” to obtain gas leases.

He said: “One of the big things with them is that they would come in and say, ‘Look at it,’ and then they’d have a map, and they’d all be colored in but your property. ‘You’re holding up this whole process because your property isn’t signed up yet.’  Well, guess what? They’d go to the next door neighbor. That map had your property colored in, but the next door neighbor’s wasn’t – and he was the one that was holding up the process.”

According to Ashur Terwilliger, head of the Chemung County Natural Gas Coalition and president of the Chemung County Farm Bureau, the AAPL – an international organization of approximately 12,000 landmen – wanted to meet with him because property owners reported so many “misgivings” involving its members to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office. He said the AAPL wanted property owners to submit a complaint form to the organization, rather than the attorney general, so it could discipline members. Terwilliger reported complaints to the AAPL, but members got shipped to a different area, he said.

According to Terwilliger, in February 2008, he met with about 10 representatives from the AAPL, their lobbyist Lee, New York Farm Bureau area field advisor Lindsay Wickham, and New York Farm Bureau deputy director and manager of governmental relations, Jeff Williams. He said they sat around a large, rectangular table in the Chemung County Soil and Water Conservation District building in Horseheads, N.Y., and for the first 20 minutes, AAPL representatives spoke with Wickham and Williams about creating a system for reporting complaints about landmen.

Terwilliger said he sat quietly as the conversation transitioned into technical aspects of drilling but spoke when an AAPL representative talked about the organization’s integrity: “I said ‘You know, if I run a national organization, I wouldn’t let my men go out and tell the stories they tell and have the fake maps they have…lying to the landowners, coercing them…’”

Allison Lee Hinchey. Photo: DKC promotional Material

According to Terwilliger, the meeting ended in heated exchanges about natural gas reserves in New York between him and the AAPL representative – the AAPL representative said they were difficult to locate, but Terwilliger said he found information on reserves from U.S. Geological Survey and Cornell University.

He said: “Anyway, we went out the door. The governmental relations man was laughing. I said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ He said, ‘Well, he shouldn’t have jumped you, but you sure gave it back to him.’ He said, ‘By the way, do you know who the woman was?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘That’s their lobbyist.’ ‘Well yeah, who is it?’ ‘That’s Maurice Hinchey’s wife.’ How would you like to be up against that?”

Lee represented the AAPL while she worked for Patricia Lynch Associates Inc., and by the end of 2008, the organization spent approximately $130,000 on services provided by the lobbying firm.

According to lobbying records, representation ended April 1, 2008. Robin Forte, executive vice president for the AAPL, verified the 2008 date. He said the organization stayed with Patricia Lynch Inc. but switched its representation to Michelle Cummings.

Forte said: “…When we became aware of that (that their lobbyist was married to a New York congressman) is when we changed our representation at the firm… We were concerned for all the obvious reasons: one, that she would have a conflict at home if she was representing the oil business with her husband’s positions and two, the possible and propriety appearance that if she could influence him in our favor that wouldn’t look good for anybody.”

When asked when Lee stopped representing the AAPL, Morosi said, “She hasn’t represented them for three years.”

According to Morosi’s three-year marker, the relationship ended in 2007, but New York State lobbying records indicate the relationship ended in April 2008. Because Morosi’s timeline conflicted with New York State lobbying records, DCBureau asked him to clarify.

Morosi then said: “I can’t comment on a specific date. The information that I have is that she said that she did not take the client with her to her new firm, and that when she left her old firm, she had no longer been working for that client for a couple of years.”

Lee left Patricia Lynch Associates Inc. in the fall of 2009 to join DKC Government Affairs, which has ties to Attorney General Cuomo.

Darren Dopp, former communications director for Gov. Eliot Spitizer and now a partner and head of the media relations unit at Patricia Lynch Associates Inc., said, “I think she still represents them – I don’t believe that we do anymore, but I can double check on that.”

But Morosi said Lee doesn’t represent the AAPL at her new firm. Both Dopp and Patricia Lynch failed to return repeated phone calls. According to lobbying records and Forte, Patricia Lynch Associates Inc. represents the organization.

Hinchey co-sponsored the FRAC Act in the House last summer. The FRAC Act would require oil and gas companies to disclose materials in hydraulic fracturing fluids in compliance with Safe Drinking Water Act.

During hydraulic fracturing, a widely used technique to extract natural gas, well operators inject fluid – about two to nine million gallons of water with chemicals making up about one to five percent of the total volume – into wells at extremely high pressure to crack and prop open shale. Environmentalists in New York fear hydraulic fracturing will damage the environment. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will spend $1.9 million to study how the technique impacts drinking water.

A great deal of money is at stake on whether or not the federal government regulates companies using hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Energy companies oppose disclosing the chemical brew used to extract gas citing proprietary secrets. At former Vice President Richard Cheney’s urging, Congress amended the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to exempt hydraulic fracturing from federal regulation.

Exxon Mobil Corp. has a $41 billion deal in place to merge with XTO Energy Inc. The finalization of this multi-billion dollar merger depends on the success or failure of lawmakers’ efforts to make hydraulic fracturing illegal or uneconomical. An article in Fort Worth Business Press reported that analysts from Virginia-based FBR Capital Market say it will take the EPA at least a year to study the impact hydraulic fracturing has on drinking water. They believe federal oversight is unlikely.

XTO Energy Inc. has 152,000 net acres of the Marcellus Shale under lease in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Gary Lash, a State University of New York Fredonia geosciences professor, said the Marcellus Shale is potentially the “biggest natural gas field in the world.” This formation exists up to 9,000 feet below ground – mainly beneath present day New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio – and covers an area of about 54,000 square miles.

The rush to the Marcellus Shale has brought in firms from Texas along with the landmen who sometimes use controversial tactics to cajole landowners to sign away their rights to gas under their land. In financially strapped Southern Tier New York, the gas rush has spoiled relationships among neighbors – and even communities.