zhounder

cactustreemotel:

thecallus:

libertarians-and-stoya:

As a resident of Pennsylvania, I can tell you that all of the environmental problems are overblown and are a tool with which crazy environmentalists and liberals have used to stop private citizens from allowing farmers to sell their property to frack for natural gas.

As another resident of Pennsylvania, I’m not sure what this person is talking about. I’m extremely concerned about fracking as a parent and a citizen. I rely on the water in wells that may become polluted by the unregulated, pressurized pumping of toxic chemicals into the ground. I live on the ground that might get all rumbly-tumbly. Regulate the shit out of fracking, now.

Natural gas companies are providing much needed jobs and money to Pennsylvania.  Any measures taken by the federal government concerning a state issue is an over-stepping of federal power.  

This was written about a fantasy world where plate tectonics cease to have meaning across the arbitrary borders of fictional territories. States’ rights are, of course, and absolute fig leaf for a broader campaign of anti-regulatory sentiment. Fortunate, L&S’s vote isn’t the only one, at the state or federal level. I will be casting mine for as much oversight over the practice of fracking at both the state and Federal level as can reasonably be implemented.

Gov. Corbett has allowed counties to set up rules and regulations of their own to punish companies that pollute.  

Either that, or he has decentralized regulatory efforts to neuter them and to absolve himself of central responsibility when we have an earthquake or some child drinks poison. It’s one of those glass half full of toxic chemicals, glass half empty of toxic chemicals things.

Not only that, but farmers are willingly renting their land to frack for natural gas - no eminent domain, no (as I’ve heard it called by Democrats here on campus) GOP power-plays.  This whole fracking business comes down to libertarian/Coasian property rights stuff.

I can’t willingly rent my land so someone can bury a corpse here on it. Thing is, I can’t rent my property for the purposes of evading regulation or for other unlawful activity. My ownership of the land does not give me sovereignty over it. I can’t rent my property so you can stab someone in face on it. I can’t rent my property so you can experiment with radioactive chemicals on it. Etc.

However, the article only talks about fracking done on American Indian land and Federal land.  That’s fine, that’s within his constitutional power.  However, he should not step in and enforce regulations upon states and individuals who wish to sell their land.

He has to for the regulations to prevent the undesired activity. The actual property lines in the way are meaningless. After all; a natural gas well might run under 10 properties. It might run across state lines. And disposing of chemicals improperly could poison people in three states that share water rights to an aquifer. The actual geological process here is minimally concerned with the yammering of a few people and their topside houses.

It’s kind of like a townhouse. If there are pyromaniacs next door, I’m interested. It may not be my place, but my kid’s on the second floor - a fire started by my neighbors is a real risk to my life and my loved ones. That’s why the interstate commerce clause is used to expand Federal power beyond borders.

I will accept precisely 0 risk to my life in order to preserve some arbitrary concept of value some nuts have associated to “states” and their “rights”.

It is not in the self-interest of fracking companies to pollute the land or the water supply.  That is not their goal.  

It isn’t in the self-interest of a bank to lose billions of dollars on a highly-leveraged bet. It isn’t in the self-interest of BP to blow a huge oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. That said, these things do happen, inadvertently (and sometimes quite vertently based on the individual greed of actors protected by the shield of a corporation who abuse their limited liability).

If you want to build a rocket, great. But the rocket might go off-course and slam into a schoolbus full of kids. That’s why we don’t let just anyone build just any rocket.

Considering how property rights work here in the United States, the EPA is redundant.

LOL, no. You can reject that for not being an actual argument, but if that’s your position I’ve only got enough time to kind of point and laugh. Considering how clowns entertain the masses, pornography is redundant.

Fortunately, many of the dangers can be reduced or eliminated by some common-sense regulation.

Common-sense regulation?  All the “common-sense” you need is to allow people to enforce the rights to their property.  That’s all the “common-sense” you need - especially since all of the fracking is being done on rented land.

Nope, because the people renting out their property don’t understand the risks. More importantly, they have no stake on the potential outcome. The risk is being born by the general public; therefore, the general public has a right to regulate.

tl;dr version:

Environmental concerns over fracking are overblown.

Depends on who’s doing the blowing. I think the stated risks are quite real.

Property rights should be the sole arbiter of regulation in this situation.

No.

Obama had better not fuck this up - because natural gas is the free-market’s solution to cleaner energy, and the government has already fucked up the market for clean energy, so it should sit this one out.

You’re right: we can’t have nice things. You’ve got the “why” all fucked up, though.

Thank you, thecallus.