Posts Tagged → Oil
Your Property Rights: Born, and Maybe Dead, on the Fourth of July
Your Private Property Rights: Born, and Possibly Died, on the Fourth of July
July 4, 2013
By Josh First
One hundred and fifty years ago today, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, America’s most hallowed ground was established. Over fifty thousand casualties among both Union and Confederate forces resulted from fierce acts of bravery and heroism on both sides over just a few days, including Pickett’s famous last-ditch assault on the Union center, into the teeth of point-blank cannon fire, canister, and grape shot.
The ferocious hand-to-hand fighting along Pickett’s front established the “high water mark” of the Confederacy, and produced the most focused military effort to date by the Union, the success of which gave impetus to the North’s final push to end a malingering war. To make those sacrifices and take those personal risks, you’ve got to really believe in something, a truth summed up brilliantly in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The fact that the battle culminated on Independence Day was not lost on either side.
Ten years ago, I had the honor of purchasing the last outstanding parcel of land on which Pickett’s Charge occurred, at the far eastern end of the field, where the Ohio 8th Regiment was dug in. Over the prior 19 years, the National Park Service had unsuccessfully pursued the “Home Sweet Home” motel, a 1950s-era no-tell hotel on two acres there. It paved over a hasty trench and a temporary field hospital where men from both armies had been treated, before archaeology became vogue.
By 2004, the motel and its blacktop were themselves things of the past, the site archaeology was done, and the final resting place of so many distinguished soldiers was returned to serene grass. It was one of the high points of my career, and I worked so hard on it because, like other Americans who visit Gettysburg, read the Gettysburg Address, and understand Gettysburg’s role, its meaning inspired me. Preserving the Union meant continuing and expanding the American dream. Protecting the Home Sweet Home site meant preserving Gettysburg’s symbolism, protecting that hallowed ground, and enshrining the American Dream of opportunity for all.
One of the most inspiring aspects of America, and core to the American Dream, is the universal concept of private property rights. Because of America’s unique private property rights system, generations of immigrants have moved across mountains and oceans to become Americans, toil hard, and take risks and make sacrifices to improve their standard of living. For hundreds of years, anyone who was willing to work hard could use their private property rights to shelter and feed their family, purchase an education for their children, and build equity for the day when their hands and back might no longer be able to physically toil.
But here in Pennsylvania, just days ago and, oddly, just days before Independence Day, the state legislature passed a two-sentence bill gutting the private property rights of landowners who have leased their land for oil and gas exploration. It was a shameful thing to do, and it is an echo of the midnight legislative pay-raise that cost so many incumbents their seats a few years ago. It is the shady act of some self- anointed few to enrich their political friends, at the huge cost of Pennsylvania’s private landowners.
As I understand it, Governor Tom Corbett is weighing whether or not to sign it into law. I hope he does not sign it. To enact such a law flies in the face of everything that is American. It is against everything that Independence Day stands for. It is against everything that the men at Gettysburg fought and died for, and against everything that America’s Founding Fathers and brave patriots fought for in 1776.
I wish you a happy Independence Day today, and in its spirit I ask that you call your state legislators, and ask them if they voted for this un-American oil and gas bill. If they did, vote them out of office, and show them that the Spirit of 1776 still stands strong. You deserve better, I deserve better, America deserves better.
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Texas Oil & Gas Companies Gone Wild – Part 1
Imagine my disgust and fury when out with my son on our hunting camp the other day we discovered four fresh survey stakes with gobs of ribbons placed on our property. No one had permission to enter our heavily posted, heavily surveyed property that adjoins PA State Forest.
Yes, I had been in discussion with a Texas-based company to come and explore the property, but we had signed nothing and they were in the process of negotiating.
So, finding the four stakes, which marked planned drilling and blasting locations, strategically placed around the property, but far enough away from the cabin that we were less likely to find them, conjured up the worst stories we have heard and seen about rogue Texas oil companies that trample on private property rights.
Luckily, I wasn’t present when the “surveyors” trespassed on our property. Had I encountered them, I would have held them at gunpoint until the State Police arrived to cite them for trespass. And I can tell you from personal experience, confronting trespassers out in the woods is uncomfortable and potentially explosive. Unless the trespasser does everything the landowner legally demands, which is a lot, the potential for gun fire is extremely high. People who defiantly trespass are probably violent, too. So the landowner has to be aggressive and controlling, ready to defend himself at any second.
I contacted the company, and their representative told me that — no kidding — my boundary is wrong and he will be happy to have a surveyor come out and fix it.
I am not lying about this. He actually said that.
Our boundary with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been surveyed by both my surveyors and the state’s surveyors, many times. It is clearly marked and has Posted No Trespassing signs along it, closely spaced so that no one can say they didn’t see them.
Interestingly, their stakes were conveniently placed so that they were least likely to be found. And whoever placed them had to walk past a bunch of big yellow Posted signs.
I am preparing the civil lawsuit and the criminal complaint as I write this, and hopefully the company will make good, so I don’t have to rub their thieving name in the dirt.
See, they stand to make a lot of money by finding out what is under my property, but they don’t want to work with me on it, so they tried to steal the information, instead.
And it is sad, because I love Texas.
Libya: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Maybe
Libya: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Maybe
Are we Americans now entering Round Two of the Great Recession?
Just when money had begun to slowly change hands again and the jointly-held shares of economic success were looking a bit brighter, the Middle East suddenly gets religion. In the vernacular, that is, Democracy being the religion of western, secular Republics and democracies.
While it’s never too late nor too soon to become a democratic polity, and we all applaud Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen et. al. for their nascent freedom fights, the timing is a wee bit of a challenge.
Underlining how volatile energy supplies affect American jobs and family bank accounts, world oil prices have erupted since Libya entered a period of civil war 26 days ago.
That popular uprising could sweep iconic dictator Moamar Gaddafi (Qaddafi, Kaddafi, The Flake, etc.) out of power. Yet, he is kept in place by his air power, which has managed to turn things around in the day since this column was begun.
He, Kadaffy, Mr. “Friend of Louis Farrakhan,” could have reasonably been brought under control within the past seven days, which is when American mobile air power anchored off of the Libyan coast. Establishing a no-fly zone over Libya gives America and its supporters, such as Britain and France, the ability to shoot down all Libyan jets and many helicopters, depriving Gaddafi of his only military advantage over the rebels.
Setting aside whether or not Barack Hussein Obama, president of the USA, believes in the kind of America that made America great and created our quality of life, and assuming that a Libya without Qadaffi is better than one with him, every day that president Obama does not intercede militarily in Libya is another day that Americans pay an extra hundreds of millions of dollars in artificially high gasoline prices.
At an estimated average of 21 million barrels of oil being consumed daily in America, the 30-dollar-per-barrel increase since Libyan troubles began has put an albatross with an anchor around America’s economic neck to the tune of $900 million per day. That’s nearly a billion dollars more in increased cost every single day. Most of that increased cost is borne by gas consumers, who are mostly car owners, which is to say, Middle-Class Americans.
These are the same middle-class taxpayers who are struggling to keep their homes and investments in the face of a protracted economic malaise known as the “Recession of the Century.” We thought that Round One of the Great Recession was slowly but perceptibly ending. Now….?
Libyan rebels, whoever they are, are at least anti-Gaddafi. Gaddafi is a friend of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and both are ferociously anti-American. Chavez has actually been able to damage American interests in material ways. Knocking the Libyan air force around will at least make the country more stable, less prone to a see-saw of military violence, and less of a threat to its neighbors. It will also cause oil prices to decline dramatically, possibly back to pre-uprising prices. If that decrease happens, then America stops hemorrhaging that additional billion dollars per day more than we were spending a month ago.
Many say that America should stay out of Libya and other foreign entanglements. But if we do not intervene, then what happens next? Is Round Two the knock-out punch, that will leave “America’s cities burning,” as one academic said today in a meeting?