By Amy Mall, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council
As oil and gas production continues to expand by leaps and bounds across the country, more and more people are concerned about the threats to human health and the environment. New organizations are cropping up every place, and their members are not necessarily people who would describe themselves as environmentalists or liberals. Some of these individuals are politically conservative and may even be very supportive of the oil and gas industry or be mineral owners.
For example, a homeowner in Texas stated: ”I’m a drill here, drill now, kind of guy, but I want them to do it responsibly and respect property owners.” A welder in Colorado stated: “I understand there has to be industry, and I don’t mind the industry being oil and gas or drilling. I in fact support it, but there’s got to be a better way to protect ourselves–a better way of doing the process.” Quotes like these are cropping up all over the place.
Read More: Top Docs Worries: Fracking is Sickening Families
In Colorado, 18 organizations just released information on the number of oil and gas-related spills in Colorado each year. According to these organizations, in 2010 and 2011, there were nearly 500 spills per year. That is a frightening number, and newsworthy.
What is also newsworthy is that 16 of the 18 organizations releasing this information are not environmental groups. They include: Commerce City Unity NOW, Elbert County Oil and Gas Interest Group, Longmont Citizens for Responsible Oil and Gas Regulation, Erie Rising, Citizens for Huerfano County, South Park Coalition, What the Frack?!, Coloradoans for Fair Rates and Clean Energy, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Renewable Communities Alliance, Routt County Frack, Be The Change, Rifle-Silt-Peach Valley-New Castle Coalition, and Frack-files.
As the oil and gas industry continues to expand into backyards and schoolyards across the country, leaving in its wake poisoned air, spills, contaminated groundwater, and more, an increasing number of Americans from all along the ideological spectrum will be raising their voices together in opposition to shoddy practices, insufficient rules, and lax enforcement.
This post originally appeared on NRDC’s Switchboard blog.
As a Conservative, I am very much opposed to this Industry just taking what they want and doing what they want with pretend regulation. You’ll notice, especially in Texas, that the Industry is touting the Texas Railroad Commission, and what a great job they do to protect the environment, blah, blah, blah. And, in turn, the TRRC feels some kind of obligation tot return the favor, so you’ll often see the Commissioners themselves cheerleading Industry as if that’s their primary job. Both now former Chairman Elizabeth Ames Jones and current, newly elected and inexperienced Commissioner David Porter have written public pieces regurgitating the propaganda Industry uses everyday.
It is the job of the TRRC to REGULATE, not cheerlead, advertise, and constantly speak of all the so-called ‘benefits’ of having your property taken away from you, contaminating the soil, air and water in the process.
When did your rights supercede mine? Oh, that’s right, when Industry paid the politicians to create the law that your right to extract minerals was greater than my right to enjoy and use the private property I bought and paid for-and continue to be obligated to pay taxes on the entire property-even those acres that Industry has taken and the same acres I’ll never be able to use.
There are more and more OCnservatives starting to fight back. Take Julia Trigg Crawford, a rancher in East Texas. I could be wrong, but she doesn’t exactly impress me as an Obama fan. Trans Canada offered her a paltry sum of cash for a substantial amount of her property to build the Keystone XL through. She’s not interested, and when she informed Trans Canada to go away, they are now in the process of using the court system to force her to give up her property. If Trans Canada wins, they will have TAKEN her private property through condemnation. In other words, Crawford will not only lose her property, she’ll not be compensated for the loss.
Someone needs to explain to me how being forced to give up your private property so that a foreign corporation can build a pipeline through it is perfectly okay and the right thing to do. To demonstrate how ridiculous this is, cattle rustling is still a hanging offense in Texas. Steal my cattle, you might find yourself swinging from a tree. Take my land that my cattle use for grazing, and that’s within the law. Okay, so it’s been awhile since anyone was strung up for cattle rustling, but you get my point.
So, you’ve given up your right to own private property so that someone else can have a job and make a profit, almost entirely at your expense. To add insult to injury, you also accept that the same group of people who allowed this to happen is also the same group of people that expect you to pay full property taxes on the property you own, but someone else gets to use. What other rights are you willing to give up? Freedom of speech? That’s probably next. When the operator on your property contaminates your drinking water and your AG pond, the operator will supply you with fresh water-in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement. Don’t know what a NDA is? It basically means that in exchange for fresh water, you agree not to talk. There, you’ve just given up your right to free speech.
What’s next? Where does it end?