Forced Pooling - Is it necessary?

[jtr...@epix.net]

Questions that need to be answered, now:

 

1.- Is forced pooling really a good idea?

2.- Is it really necessary?

3.- Does it really reduce environmental impact?

4.- Is it "one citizen = one vote" or "one vote for every acre" one person owns?

 

The questions we all need to ask ourselves is this:

Q: Is this "political pay-back" to an industry that has spent millions on political campaign contributions, and slick TV/Radio commercials?

 

Q: Are we going to allow the property rights and constitutional rights of one person to be based on how many acres they own, or if they've decided to lease their land for gas and/or oil drilling, or not?    

 

Forced pooling, compulsory integration, conservation pooling, right of use, etc., regardless of what euphemism it's proponents choose to use this time around, it's still a form of eminent domain and a forfeiture of individual property rights that will ultimately result in the devaluation of our private property. 

 

I suggest you ask your local and state legislators these questions, but before you do, ask an attorney, a realtor, or ask those in other states who are dealing with the aftermath of this now. They're all over the internet. Don't take my word for it, but don't take the politicians or industry's word blindly either. We need to protect ourselves. Pass it on.

 

[Patrick Walker]

I totally endorse everything John say here, but I'd like to add some relevant legal theory I've recently learned.    The whole subject of forced pooling falls under the legal category of "takings" (situations in which it's claimed the state has a right to take individual's private property--with or without compensation--depending on circumstances and the nature of the society in which one lives). In the general theory of takings, takings are an innate part of sovereignty--that is, if you truly rule, you may sometimes take private citizens' property, if pressing enough reasons of state requires it.   Now, in a constitutional republic like the United States, the theory of takings that applies is a theory of popular sovereignty, whereby takings are generally discouraged, as being contrary to the best interests of the people. When they're allowed, it's only because they're widely considered to be in the bests interests of the people; another way of putting this is that they serve the common good. But even in this case, takings in a constitutional republic are generally supercompensated, since individual property rights are considered sacred, and government incursions on those rights--for whatever purpose--are seen as setting a precedent potentially dangerous to citizens' liberty.   So--if we wish to honor the principle of a constitutional republic so dear to our Founders--takings should be rare, provably in the public interest, and supercompensated. To my mind, we've strayed far from the principle of a constitutional republic as envisioned by our Founders, and I find it very telling that Tea Party members, with whom I'm frequently at odds, firmly agree. So when a government that has very dubious claims to be being representative--but almost certainly represents the kind of special interests that James Madison would have scorned as "factions" (see the Federalist Papers, especially No. 10), we should have profound doubts abouit the moral or legal merits of any of its takings.   Never was this more the case than when takings are to be made in PA for the sake of the gas industry. Our U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winner in physics, aware of the vast wealth and excessive political influence of the oil and gas industry, has declared (in light of climate change) that the fossil fuel industry can no longer be allowed to dictate our nation's energy policy. California, often said to be a precursor of things to come in our nation,  this past November roundly defeated the oil and gas industry's attempt, via Proposition 23, to unravel the stringent environmental and emissions standards it had passed. But we in PA, living as if in some new Dark Age, have just elected a governor who received $835,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, and who would love to conduct takings in its name.   Now, as James Madison would have been quick to acknowledge, mere electoral victory is no proof that harmful "factions" have not been at work; one of his greatest fears (learned from his own experience in Virginia state government) was that well-organized, determined factions could hoodwink the public into voting against the common good. Though modern corporations didn't exist in his day, they perfectly correspond to Madison's idea of factions, and their vast resources, access to politicians, and ownership or financing of media allows them to propagandize the public with biased information in a way that makes informed consent of the governed a sick joke. So the gas industry--with the general complicity of our well-lobbied PA government--has been able to hoodwink the public with the highly questionable propositions that natural gas is a clean fuel, that the type of gas drilling used in PA has been practiced safely for 60 years, and that gas can anytime in our near future guarantee our nation's energy independence. I, like many infromed activists, can in a few sentences refute any of these propositions, but the gas industry--aided by PA elected officials who frequently parrot them--has used its communication advantages to implant them widely in the public mind, to the detriment of sound public policy. Common Cause can document far better than I the money they've spent in doing so.   So, with an unduly influenced PA government and a huge misinformation campaign by a rich-as-Croesus gas industry with many media sources in its pockets, any pretense of forced pooling being for the common good of a duly informed public is a sham. PA Homeland Security's e-mail to my wife (Virginia Cody) admitting that they're on the side of the gas industry and the Williamsport Sun-Gazette's false report that I was escorted by police from the Penn Wells Hotel after publically rebutting Tom Ridge are ample proof of the industry's undue control. I've made some constructive suggestions to Patrick Henderson (when he was only Sen. Mary Jo White's legislative assistant, on how our government could help to counter industry spin and better educate the public. It's ironic that he, in his newly created energy czar position, will be one of the strongest voices for gas industry takings, when he has contemptuously rejected my efforts to build a duly informed public--the only kind that can, in a constitutional republic, possibly give consent to the government takings he favors.  --- On Sun, 1/16/11, jtr...@epix.net <jtr...@epix.net> wrote: