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Ranjana Bhandari and her husband, Kaushik De, stand near a Chesapeake Energy gas well in Arlington, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2012.
Ranjana Bhandari and her husband knew the natural gas beneath their ranch-style home in Arlington, Texas, could be worth a lot - especially when they got offer after offer from Chesapeake Energy Corp.
Chesapeake wanted to drill there, and the offers could have netted the couple thousands of dollars in a bonus and royalties. But Bhandari says they ultimately declined the deals because they oppose fracking in residential areas. Fracking, slang for hydraulic fracturing, is a controversial method used to extract gas and oil.
Their repeated refusals didn't stop Chesapeake, the second-largest natural gas producer in the United States. This June, after petitioning a Texas state agency for an exception to a 93-year-old statute, the company effectively secured the ability to drain the gas from beneath the Bhandari property anyway -- without having to pay the couple a penny.
In fact, since January 2005, the Texas agency has rejected just five of Chesapeake's 1,628 requests for such exceptions, a Reuters review of agency data shows. Chesapeake has sought the most exceptions during that time -- almost twice the number sought by a subsidiary of giant rival Exxon Mobil, Reuters found.
Chesapeake says it only seeks exceptions to the Texas statute -- called Rule 37 -- as a last-ditch effort, and often because it cannot locate the land owner. The law, company spokesman Michael Kehs said, "protects the rights of the majority of mineral owners."
Not so, say many local residents.
"The principle of it is insane," said Calvin Tillman, a former mayor of Dish, Texas, a small town north of Fort Worth where drilling has been heavy. "Not only can they take your property, but they don't have to pay you for it."
Chesapeake's use of the Texas law is among the latest examples of how the company executes what it calls a "land grab" -- an aggressive leasing strategy intended to lock up prospective drilling sites and lock out competitors.
Chesapeake has become the principal player in the largest land boom in America since the California Gold Rush of the late 1840s and ‘50s, amassing drilling rights on more land than almost any U.S. energy company. After years of leasing tracts from New York to Wyoming, the company now controls the right to drill for oil and gas on about 15 million acres -- roughly the size of West Virginia.
More than its rivals, Chesapeake has made land-leasing central to its business model. An analysis by investment research firm Morningstar Inc. shows that the company has spent $31.2 billion to acquire drilling rights on unproven U.S. land in the last 15 years. Exxon -- a company whose revenue was 35 times larger than Chesapeake's last year -- spent $27 billion during the same period.
Chesapeake's rationale is clearly spelled out in company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"We believed that the winner of these land grabs would enjoy competitive advantages for decades to come as other companies would be locked out of the best new unconventional resource plays in the U.S.," the company wrote in its 2012 filing.
It has been less forthcoming about the tactics used in implementing that strategy, however.
Reuters reviewed hundreds of internal Chesapeake emails and thousands of pages of documents, including in-house data that show how Chesapeake evaluates its land acquisitions.
Reporters also examined dozens of lawsuits by land owners in seven states, and interviewed contractors proffering deals for the company.
What emerged were approaches to leasing property that land brokers, land owners and lawyers say push ethical and legal limits. Chesapeake has unilaterally altered or backed out of leases. And in Texas and at least three other states, it has exploited little-known laws to force owners to hand over drilling rights and sometimes forfeit profits.
Some of the company's own contractors have considered the tactics dubious.
"In my entire career, I have never been put in the position that (Chesapeake) has recently handed us," contractor David McGuire wrote to Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon on Aug. 10, 2010. He had just been ordered by the company to reject hundreds of signed leases in Michigan -- through means that McGuire said were "beyond anything I could ever have imagined."
He told McClendon that he regretted ever being part of Chesapeake's land grab. "I simply wish our deal would never have taken place," he wrote in the email.
Some of the methods that Chesapeake has used aren't unique to the company. Nor is the outcome necessarily one-sided. Many land owners have gotten rich on deals with Chesapeake.
"Chesapeake has been successful in our leasing because we strive to fairly compensate the more than one million Chesapeake mineral owners," said spokesman Kehs. "Chesapeake has paid nearly $12 billion in lease bonus payments and nearly $10 billion in royalty payments since 2005."
Critical juncture
How Chesapeake went about its land grab has become increasingly important in the past year, as the company weathers a governance crisis and liquidity crunch.
In April, Reuters reported that McClendon, 53, had arranged more than $1.5 billion in financing by pledging his share of the company's wells as collateral for personal loans. Most of the borrowing came from a firm that also is an investor in Chesapeake, a potential conflict of interest. The report prompted Chesapeake's board of directors to strip McClendon of his chairmanship and hire an independent chairman. Disgruntled shareholders replaced four of its nine directors.
In June, Reuters documented Chesapeake's efforts to team with Canadian rival Encana Corp. to avoid driving up land prices in Michigan. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether the companies violated antitrust laws.
Now, as Chesapeake fights to regain its footing, it is looking to execute the last stage in its land strategy: filling out its vast holdings, and then developing or selling them. Where Chesapeake doesn't intend to drill, it intends to sell, according to company presentations.
Much hinges on this next chapter. This year, the company aims to sell $14 billion worth of assets to close a cash-flow deficit.
The real estate strategy has been honed by McClendon, who started his career as a land man, the term for brokers who acquire mineral rights for energy companies.
On April 28, 2010 -- amid one of the biggest land grabs in Michigan history -- McClendon received a flattering email that harkened to his beginnings. It came from contractor McGuire, manager at O.I.L. Niagaran, a local firm that Chesapeake hired to help handle its leasing efforts in northern Michigan.
"To the most successful Landman in the world," McGuire's email began.
McClendon adored the compliment. "That is the nicest title anyone has ever given me," he replied. "I really appreciate that, thanks David!"
McGuire had been hired to serve as Chesapeake's principal outside land man in Michigan, where the company sought acreage in the Collingwood shale formation, then one of the most promising new oil and gas plays in the United States.
After Chesapeake identifies acreage that might hold significant gas or oil, it deploys armies of land men -- some Chesapeake employees, others contractors such as McGuire and his employees. They knock on the doors of land owners to solicit leases. Few regulations govern what they can say or what language can be included in leases.
Chesapeake has, until recently, employed more than 4,000 land men. Often, they are ordered not to disclose that Chesapeake is their client, according to internal emails and interviews with land owners and land men.
"It is critical that we do everything in our power to keep our client's name secret!!!!" wrote Joe McFerron in a Nov. 10, 2010, email to his staff. McFerron was a contractor with RedSky Land, an Oklahoma brokerage hired by Chesapeake in North Dakota and Michigan. McFerron did not respond to requests for comment.
Broker McGuire pursued his task energetically and in secret: Within three months, O.I.L. Niagaran and other subcontractors for Chesapeake had leased about 450,000 acres in Michigan. Chesapeake spent some $400 million there through McGuire and other brokers.
But internal Chesapeake emails show that by August -- a few months after he had called McClendon the world's best land man -- McGuire was troubled by the experience.
At the direction of McClendon and other Chesapeake executives, McGuire was ordered to reject or put on hold hundreds of leases after a Chesapeake test well performed poorly and a major Chesapeake competitor stopped new leasing.
A backlash ensued, and McGuire's company bore the brunt. O.I.L. Niagaran became a defendant in about 150 breach-of-contract lawsuits filed since late 2010 in Michigan state courts.
McGuire referred questions to an attorney, who declined to comment.
Faux deals?
Extricating itself from land leases has sometimes proved as important to Chesapeake as obtaining them.
In lawsuits in Texas, Pennsylvania and North Dakota, land owners allege Chesapeake has treated signed leases as mere placeholders for deals that it may later choose not to honor.
Two state court judges in Michigan ruled early this year that Chesapeake had the right to reject leases at any time before title to the minerals was finalized.
But in the last three months, judges in Louisiana and Texas have awarded nearly $120 million to two land owners -- Peak Energy and Preston Exploration -- after finding Chesapeake breached contracts by walking away from signed deals. Scores of similar cases in Michigan and Texas have been settled this year.
In late 2008, as the financial crisis sent natural gas prices tumbling, Chesapeake began to reevaluate deals it had cut.
One group of land owners caught in these retreats was the Witt family. They own a 33-acre tract above the Haynesville formation of rich gas fields in Harrison County, Texas.
In August 2008, the Witts were approached by land men working for Chesapeake. The offer: to lease mineral rights for the Witts' land for $14,000 per acre, according to an amended complaint filed in May 2012. Instead of checks, Chesapeake issued bank drafts, which can be cashed after an owner's property title is reviewed -- typically 30 to 90 days after a lease is signed.
When the Witts went to cash the Chesapeake bank draft, they were told by bank officials that the payment would not be honored. A hand-written note on one of the Witts' bank drafts rescinded by Chesapeake reads, "Cancelled for renegotiating price (per) acre," according to an exhibit submitted in the family's lawsuit.
The Witts alleged that McClendon told Chesapeake employees "to reduce the already agreed upon bonuses down to no more than $5,000 per acre" and to "take lawsuits" if necessary.
The family claimed they were "cold-drafted," a term used to describe an "unethical practice in the leasing industry" in which the land owner is provided a bank draft "in consideration for a valid, enforceable lease," even though the company's intent is "not to honor the payment obligation."
The practice allegedly enables Chesapeake to lock up property, block rivals, prevent owners from shopping for better offers, and then later decide if it wants to keep the acreage.
"It is unethical by anyone's standards in the energy industry if the intention was not to pay the draft at the time it was issued," said Richard Bate, an oil and gas attorney in Denver. "It is the essence of the land grab because it boxes out the competition without the intention to pay."
In response to the suit, Chesapeake said it "was simply under no contractual obligation to pay lease bonuses" to the Witts, according to court records. The company said the leases were "not signed by Chesapeake," though copies show they were taken in the name of a Chesapeake subsidiary, Chesapeake Exploration.
Terry Rhoads, an attorney for the Witt family, said their lawsuit was settled on Aug. 17. Terms were t disclosed.
No refusing
Some landowners oppose fracking, and New York, Vermont and Maryland have all refused to grant fracking licenses. The technique's effects on groundwater are still under review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But Chesapeake and other energy companies, which view fracking as safe, are now using state statutes to access the minerals under unleased land even if owners object to the drilling technique.
If property owners refuse deals, Chesapeake and its land men have made clear their plans to take the oil and gas from beneath the land by using little-known laws in Texas, Ohio and other states. The terminology varies from state to state -- a Rule 37 exception in Texas, mandatory pooling or unitization in Ohio. But the result is often the same: getting state regulators to enable the company to drill, sometimes against the owner's will.
The economic argument for granting access to unleased land is logical. Difficulty in stitching together large plots leaves holes in drilling units that can make development less profitable. Large, contiguous plots enable drillers to pump more oil and gas. Allowing companies to access remaining land means that property owners who want to sell their mineral rights aren't shortchanged by a few holdouts.
"Under Ohio law, it's not legal for one or a few landowners to keep the vast majority of landowners from exercising their rights to develop their minerals and get the benefits," said Heidi Hetzel Evans, a spokeswoman with the state's Department of Natural Resources, which rules on such requests.
Chesapeake has based some of its petitions on just such a premise: that it is protecting the rights of people who want to drill, rather than succumbing to the will of holdout landowners.
That marks a turnabout in Texas. When the state passed the Rule 37 statute in 1919, it was meant to prevent excessive drilling of oil wells and to protect the mineral rights of small landowners, say legal experts. The rule prohibits companies from drilling too close to unleased properties.
Today, Rule 37 exceptions "seem to be a new creative use of the statute in a way that was not intended when it was designed," said Matthew Festa, an associate professor of law at South Texas College of Law. "It's possible that this amounts to the transfer of private property from one private entity to another private entity."
Since Jan. 1, 2005, three of the largest oil and gas drillers in Texas have applied for 3,595 exceptions to Rule 37, according to a Reuters review of Texas Railroad Commission data. Chesapeake has been the most active. It has applied for 1,628 exceptions, compared with 1,073 for rival EOG Resources and 894 for XTO Energy, a unit of Exxon Mobil.
Chesapeake and its rivals almost always win. Energy companies only have to notify land owners that they intend to apply for a Rule 37 exception. If the owner doesn't protest, commission guidelines require the petition be granted.
Texas Railroad Commission spokeswoman Ramona Nye said the agency believes there is no evidence that fracking is unsafe. And evaluating the fairness of Rule 37 exceptions is not part of the commission's mandate, she said.
"We are charged by the Legislature to make sure hydrocarbons don't stay underground and go to waste," she said. "It becomes a balancing act. Do we allow two or three landowners to prevent a majority from developing those minerals?"
Energy companies and their executives are the dominant contributors to the election campaigns of railroad commission members and candidates, according to a Reuters review of Texas Ethics Commission data. For example, Chesapeake was among the largest donors last year to the campaign of the commission's chairman, Barry Smitherman, who is seeking reelection this year. The company contributed $25,000.
‘Whatever we want’
In Texas, Arlington resident Bhandari is resigned to losing future income from the gas beneath the couple's land. "We decided not to sign because we didn't think it was safe," Bhandari said. But "the railroad commission doesn't seem to care about whose property is taken."
They aren't the only owners facing a similar scenario.
Ohio's Utica shale formation is a cornerstone of Chesapeake's plan to drill for more oil, which is fetching a premium at a time of rock-bottom natural gas prices. The company has already leased more than 1 million acres of land in the state. It wants more.
One result: Dozens of Ohio land owners interviewed by Reuters say Chesapeake land men are raising the prospect that their land will be "force pooled" -- a term for using state law to mandate that unleased property be included in drilling units.
That contention is supported by a tape recording of land man Nate Laps, who worked for Chesapeake in Ohio through subcontractor Kenyon Energy. The recording was made by David Kennedy, a landowner in Stark County, Ohio. Kennedy later signed a lease with Chesapeake, receiving a bonus of $9,900 for his 11-acre property. He said he feels that Laps gave him a "fair shake."
The recording indicates that not all landowners are as fortunate.
In a portion of the recorded conversation, Kennedy asked Chesapeake land man Laps: "Mandatory pooling -- what is that?"
Laps responded: "We don't like to talk about this because we won't want to come across as it's our way or no way. … But since you mentioned it -- if properties don't want to sign, if we have 90 percent secured of the well that we need, we have the power to put these people in the lease without their permission."
Kennedy: "Do you still have to pay 'em?"
Laps: "All you do is pay them the royalties. … We can do whatever we want."
Laps did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment. But state records in Ohio show Chesapeake is doing precisely what Laps said, and with the blessing of regulators.
Unlike Rule 37 in Texas, Ohio statutes allow that landowners could receive royalties. Hetzel Evans said the DNR receives "a few dozen or more" forced-pooling applications per year. The DNR has approved most of them, she said, but only when a driller shows "there's no other option."
Asked about the comments by Laps to landowner Kennedy, she said: "It does concern us if we're being portrayed as allowing an operator to just come in and do what they will. A comment like that makes it sound like we don't have a framework in place."
State Rep. Mark Okey, a Democrat who represents nearby communities, has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation to govern the conduct of land men. He said his constituents have singled out Chesapeake's brokers as the most forceful. Their land men have even sought to lease his property, he said.
"They believe in intimidation tactics. They threaten you. They will yell at you. … It's all about getting you to sign," Okey said. "You don't sign? We'll go around you. You don't sign? You'll not get anything out of your mineral rights. You don't sign? Then you're going to pay the price because we're going to take those minerals from you."
Chesapeake declined to comment.
David and Catherine Conrad live just outside the town of Hartville, Ohio, near Akron. They said they refused to sign a lease with Chesapeake last year because they, too, oppose fracking. But a Chesapeake well will soon snake beneath the Conrad home.
Chesapeake requested in November that the couple's land -- and the land of 48 other property owners -- be included in an area where Chesapeake plans to drill six wells. Chesapeake's application was reported by the Columbus Dispatch.
On July 10, officials with the DNR approved Chesapeake's request. "I don't think the state should be able to take a landowner's rights to generate a profit for a private company," Conrad said.
In its petition, Chesapeake told regulators its proposed drilling unit could produce 4.5 million barrels of oil and 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas -- if the plots of the 49 landowners who didn't lease their property to Chesapeake were included.
If not, Chesapeake said, the unit would be 75 percent less productive and would miss out on an additional $71 million in revenue, according to its application. That math carried the day.
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Leave a Comment:
Have they not seen "There Will be Blood"? Chesapeake drank their milkshake.
Welcome to the Corporate States of America.
Brought to you by Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Alito and Kennedy. All white Catholic men appointed by a Republican.
Hierarchy over democracy, money over justice.
Citizens United is the Pope.
welcome to the U$A inc. No problem having the water table polluted from fracking, we can all just buy drinking water from the stores sold by the same companies.
"And this shall be, one nation, under the dollar, with liberty and justice for none."
-Lisa Simpson
Seriously, folks...it's time to sharpen the guillotines...
At RealAmericansFirst -
"Brought to you by Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Alito and Kennedy. All white Catholic men appointed by a Republican...."
All white catholic men? Really? Ahem... Have you seen a recent photo of Thomas? I suggest you take a peek.... Your post is a joke Sir....
Money, Money, Money that is all its about to big business with no thought of the consequences of their actions. Sickening and it needs to be stopped.
Something eerily similar to this happens to a friend of mines parents in Alaska. A natural gas company wanted to pay them to store natural gas under their house. They refused because they (like most Alaskans) have a well for their watter.
Well, they got a letter stating that they did not have mineral rights to the land and the company was going to use the land anyway.
Now they cannot shower or use the water to drink and are going to have to leave, they have lived on that property for over twenty years.
Corperate greed is killing this country...
American Socialist
Either you're misinformed or you are obviously slanting the facts. Firstly, water wells are Protected under law in every state. BTW - natural gas is NOT stored underground, let alone under someone's house. It does exist in formations in many places but your story screams mythical. You also didn't say how the well was affected, if somehow it was polluted by drilling then the oil company is financially responsible for fixing the problem (by law). BTW- if you refere to the water wells lighting up in Penn. just remember, these wells had natural gas in them decades before the drilling even started; this is public record.
manifest destiny that people!
Yes...let's not have them go to waste. Let's burn them and put them into the atmosphere where they will help accelerate global warming.
Just goes to show how far big oil and gas will go to get what they want !!! Enough said.
put it this way...
get some signs saying PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING. And on the fences, advertise that you have dogs, with signs that show and say an example of the size and breed of your dogs saying, "I CAN MAKE IT TO THE FENCE IN 2.5 SECONDS, HOW ABOUT YOU"?
An uninvited land man enters my property, he'll either get his throat taken out by my Boerboels or my shotgun up his arse, whichever comes first, No Questions Asked!
Simple as Pie....
This is the pay back that these energy companies expected from heavy campaign contributions and unabashed support to people like Fred Upton (R), who chairs House Energy and Commerce.
This is what fracking can do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-GY_uS2fI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZ4LQSonXA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGEKzMgkUhU
Water lighting on fire? Would anyone here want this next to their home?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZ4LQSonXA
Well, looks like MICHIGAN needs to vote that Bassturd out. The second he's up for reelection...make sure you dump him. That's FRED UPTON (R) HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE. He needs to go....
In each state, name that representative that supports this garbage and get busy to vote them out. This can't happen if most of this nation being glued to their tv sets, don't act! Being complacent, never works! Just complaining never works!
This is a reply for Ken in post 1.8.
http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/analysis_publications/storagebasics/storagebasics.html
DDT was safe, too.
How did THAT work out?
Ken Trout:
Fracking is exempt from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Courtesy of the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, under a provision implemented by Dick Cheney on behalf of the energy companies that has come to be known as the "Halliburton Loophole".
Good luck getting any payment for your well. They're exempt.
how is this a surprise... especially in TX?
lol...
Thanks for clearing that up Ken Trout...I must have imagined that whole thing.
Here is the house...
60.493926, -151.269293 (Use sat view in Goole maps)
Look what borders their property just to the south....a$$hole
"http://articles.ktuu.com/2012-05-31/cook-inlet-gas_31931823"
You can try all you want to make the gas companies look like saints...but in the modern world you cannot hide screwing people over.
captcrash-1804989 - You are correct - I should have said "all Catholic men appointed by a Republican".
But Thomas is married to a white woman who works for the Heritage Foundation (founded by the Koch brothers).
Doesn't really change the motivation or outcome, does it?
And it didn't take me too long to find the heavily lobbied (bribed) "watter aquifer exemption" that actually allows them to taint the aquifer.
http://www.cingsa.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=t3xTwgl10hk%3d&tabid=220&mid=689
F*cking sad....
Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to force Joe Barton (R-Texas) (House Energy and Commerce), Dick Cheney (R) (Uncommon Criminal in all things related to mankind and nature), and the whole bunch to tell the TRUTH about how this was set up - the full truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God?
And Ken Trout - sorry, but you are badly misinformed on this issue.
This is corruption, pure and simple. The citizens of Texas should round up the decision makers and put them in jail for bribery.
Additionally, the companies that have ruined the ground water should be heavily fined and made to clean up the mess they made.
If corporations want to make money, they must follow the law. Bribing officials to find ways around the law is simply unAmerican, and should be punished.
If a legal means can not be found, I suspect that an underground method of protest could be found. Picketing the corporate headquarters, post protest signs on the highway, elect non-bribable politicians.
Alternatively, a nice bonfire at the well head might make a meaningful statement.
Does anyone remember the secret energy meeting with Bush, Cheney, and representatives of the oil & gas industry shortly after Bush took office in 2001? Looks like this is one of the many results of those discussions...
AND . . .THIS happened in Texas? I am totally SHOCKED! SHOCKED, I tell you!
Gov. Perry and his horde hard at work for big energy.
The article missed the real story about Chesapeake...
They have sold large areas to China for development...
The free technology transfer proposal is even odder in light of China’s voracious demand for shale gas technological know-how and proven willingness to attempt to buy it.
“State-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) entered into a joint venture with U.S. shale gas leader Chesapeake Energy two years ago (2010), ina move experts viewed as a bid to gain access to (driiling/fracking) expertise,” National Geographic notes. “In January, Sinopec, China’s number two oil company purchased a one-third stake in several new ventures of industry pioneer Devon Energy for $900 million and committed to cover $1.6 billion of future drilling costs.”
reference - http://theenergycollective.com/mstepp/114401/free-technology-transfer-not-way-go
hehe. Great. So an American company is seizing the mineral rights off the lands of American citizens in America (well.. at least, in Texas, which may or may not be in America.. I'm not sure any more), quite possibly to sell hydrocarbons to China. Wow. How patriotic these corporate persons are.
Ken Trout, regarding your inane comment that natural gas is not stored underground - Yes it is. Laclede Gas in St Louis, MO uses an underground cavern to store gas for the entire metropolitan area. They aren't the only ones either. Natural gas is often stored in caverns given the right type of rock formations. Don't talk about stuff you don't know anything about...
Chesapeake's fine corporate citizenship:
http://www.texassharon.com/2012/04/05/chesapeake-energy-sickens-arlington-residents-again-with-fracking-flowback-operations/
Arsehats.
Oh, by the way, their CEO's the 3rd highest paid in the US, with annual compensation of $116 million, and they are a leading supporter of the whole ALEC corruption lobby.. and then there's all that methane they dumped into PA's drinking water.
Is this taking related to or enabled by the recent Supreme Court decision/pronouncement that States may reassign their power of Eminent Domain to commercial enterprises?
Is that Supreme Court pronouncement incompatible with the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States of America?
I hope the next story I read is about a disgruntled landowner who brings deadly retribution to the Chesapeake CEO and executives.
Ken Trout
You are miss- informed.
UnAmerican, Sic-n-tired? Bribing officials to find ways around the law has been a standard procedure in this land since the days of the first settlers when they grabbed land from the Native Americans by claiming they weren't really human and had no rights to this New World.
Corporations are people too and it seems they have more rights than the living breathing ones.
The American people are up against the joint collaboration of the government/industrial military complex/Supreme Court/corporations. We don't stand a chance.
If we are supposed to be the country with the strongest stand for liberty and justice for all, just imagine what these corporations are doing to the people of Africa and South America, who have absolutely no voice at all.
heck, I was also about to call BS on ken trout, but so many informed people beat me to it.
I guess in Texas you're rights don't exist. This is whats happens when you leave Republicans in charge.
whats the difference between a corporate state (conservative republicans) and a nanny state (liberal democrats)?
the nanny state tells you what to do, and the corporate state tells you what to do while making you pay for it
We Americans like to think we live in this mythical world of freedom and justice for all. It is becoming more and more evident everyday that a huge cesspool of corruption and greed lurks just beneath the surface.
A conglomerate of wealthy private interests bribe politicians and judges in order to steal rights away from ordinary citizens while keeping most of the population in the dark about their nefarious and unethical pillaging.
These are among the primary supporters of Republican candidates pouring huge amounts of money into the campaigns anonymously to spread lies and misinformation in an effort to grab more power and freedom to rob and exploit.
This way the revolution--hopefully before all our water sources are contaminated. Current regs on fracking don't even require them to divulge what chemicals they use, although it's well known one such is benzene, a highly carcinogenic toxin.
Revolution for the good begins with information.
Start with listening to the end of the political adds. Listen for the "responsible for this add" name. One that comes to mind is the American for Tax Reform. Sounds bland enough, but do a search. You will see references to the Jack Abramoff scandal, and familiar names like Norquist.
Keep on raping Mother Earth. There will be consequences.
Son it's not Rape anymore, it's Sodomy !
If it was legitimate rape, the Earth has a way of shutting that whole thing down.
That's awesome!
Those last four posts made my night! Time to go watch Sons of Anarchy......at this point we may as well all become renegade bikers because it's certainly not our goverment or big corporations who follow any moral guidelines.
Honor amomg thieves is rapidly becoming the only honor most corporate rulers and enablers understand!
I cannot for the life of me understand how we are not only letting these corporate monsters rape our land and contaminate our water, but going out of our way to help them. Where is the uproar? Why does this rate back page news? Watch Gasland and form your own opinion. But for Gods sake people...stop them from this greedy short sited money grab.
Time to lock n' load, no wait... that's why they want to take away our guns! Other than that, all the complaining and "voting" will never stop the greed that is actually being encouraged buy our bought and paid for gov'mint representative's in Washington!
This is not new, people only own the top 6" of dust of their property, the rest belongs to Uncle Sam to sell to whoever he pleases. BTW - The oil & Gas industry employs over 10 million people full time with well paying jobs, it injects over 300 billion yearly INTO the US economy. Certainly much of big business is evil, but right now much of it is necessary.
Because we killed all them natives.
I think the problem with corporate america is they are us. We own stocks through our 401K's, we don't take politics seriously and allow politicians to run rabid on us. Worse yet we're going to do it again next election because we're pathetically apathetic.
Vote every incumbent out, Dems and Rep alike. Don't you folks think it's time we get our country back.
Boehner, Harry Reid, Pelosi, Canter...all of 'em, they've got to go! Reprobate minds that will never come to the knowledge of "the Truth" or just plain "doing the right thing". Ever get the idea that the Dems and Repub in office, are involved in the same backroom deals, giving all of us some dramatic theatre for the ignorant and stupid to believe in.
Remember, when you're voting for the lesser of two evils, you're still voting for evil....
Stand with the righteous or fall with the damned.... Pick a side, there's only two, right or wrong. And if you were thinking either Dems or Repubs, you're still living under a delusion. They are fallen....and it looks as if they really like it...for now. For the time WILL come, where they will surely reap what they have sown. And no amount of money can buy them out of where they'll be going if they don't change their wicked ways.
It won't do any good to vote out the incumbents. The same lobbiests will be there for the fresh noobies. We have to pass a law that makes government officials taking monies of favors or future jobs to selves or family members from any outside source an act of treason.
Set up some gallows in front of the Lincoln memorial and hang these paid for money grubbing corrupt Senators - Representatives, etc. five at a time.
No-where else in businesss can people take bribes to do harm to their employers - in this case the United States Citizens. Let congress give themselves a triple pay raise with the caveat "it is treason to take money from any other source.
You're right, that is a better idea!
Why are innocent people in a movie theatre killed when there are such better places for those bullets?
Because the scum that deserve to be culled always hide behind willing sycophants. They are also good at pointing fingers at everyone but themselves...
The abomination in Texas that allows property owners to be stripped of their rights with NO compensation deserves nothing less than violent resistance. Since when did we give up freedom and property rights in the interest of corporate profits.... Oh, I forgot, that "conservative" SCOTUS that stripped us of our rights in favor of expanded eminent domain (legal extortion and robbery). Talk about "activist judges"...
Nothing new in this. Courts have upheld that land can be seized not on the basis of the common good such as freeways and such but for increased taxation unlike what original imminent domain laws were for. Any city or state can allow one individual, company or corporation to petition forced acquisition of anothers property if it results in more taxes being paid. You have a home or plot of land you don't want to sell? If McDonald's wants to buy it and put a restaurant there based on projected property taxes of $1,000 a month versus your $1,000 a year cities will probably apply imminent domain forcing you to sell at a price it sets.
You think that you "own" your land, but read the deed to your property very, very carefully and you will find in very, very fine legalese language that you do not own the "mineral rights" of your property. Therefore, the gov't or business has its own way of taking from you what is not theirs.
America, the United States of Corporations -- everything, everyone at the service of the corporations, the rich ...
And, folks, this is what will get worse as long as the 1% own the politicians, the government....
i blames the natives, they should have fought harder! OR cheated! some thing.
I suggest you don't generalize. Mineral rights vary from state to state and I can assure you I most definitely own mine and receive a decent royalty check every year for them.
That being said, it is obviously of concern that despite owning the rights the subjects in this article are getting screwed out of what's theirs. Like others above have alluded this comes as a result of the SCOTUS ruling on eminent domain and allowing it cross the boundaries of evolving from what started out as a method to ensure that one landowner couldn't prevent a project benefiting all, but has now evolved into something that allows towns and corporations to do whatever makes the most money.
I know plenty that have mineral rights, and water. If you buy land, don't be stupid. If you don't understand all the legal mumbo jumbo, like me, get a decent lawyer to handle the transaction. It will run about $600 extra. And worth every cent!
I don't know who owns the mineral rights here, but even if Chesapeake legitimately acquired them, they should still be subject to rules regulating its safe and fair extraction... not simply exempted from them, as this Texas law does. Normally, when somebody wants to exploit mineral rights under somebody else's urban land, she has to enter into a contractual agreement allocating rights and responsibilities between herself and the surficial land-owner before she can start digging or drilling. That agreement will specify rights and responsibilities in case of subsidence, explosions, accidents, groundwater depletion or contamination, and whatnought. In this case, the exemption appears to allow the oil company to completely ignore any such niceties... or, for that matter, what happens if the homeowner decides to exercise his or her sovereign rights to drill a bore hole in his yard and throws ab lit match down it at the same time Chesapeake wants to drill, just to annoy them...?
These exemptions aren't only unjust.. they're just plain short-sighted and idiotic. Anyone who thinks about this process for more than a jiffy can see scores of ways this can end badly.
Ken Trout =
Another classic example of an oil & gas troll spreading miss-information. Go on now. Everyone recognizes who is paying your salary.
Abby: Some include mineral rights and others do not. The examples in this article are for people who do own the mineral rights. If you don't own the mineral rights they deal with who has them for your property.
No surprise here... this tactic is why people living in Appalachia can't complain about the mines, heavy metals in their drinking water, medical problems, a whole laundry list if life shortening complaints. The mine owners have locked up mineral rights - pretty much in perpetuity - for everything. In addition, though back room deals with Politicians they can ignore most reclamation requirements or are absolved to responsibility for any damage which occurred during or after they either abandon or shutdown operations temporaily or for extended time periods. Used to be that a claim was lost if the operations were not ongoing. Now - they can close a mine for 50 years or 100 years... but their rights remain valid. Bottom line - if your Great, Great, Great relatives sold rights for 20 years ... the changes in the laws now allow them to continue mining. drilling based on the original 20 year grant and you can't do anything about it.
I really wish more people would pay attention to this story. It will be coming soon to a neighborhood near all of us. A private company can just TAKE your property! Don't look to the courts for redress.
You do understand they are talking about mineral rights? It does not mean anyone is tearing up the land or bulldozing houses. In most cases those who get paid for their mineral rights have absolutely no one setting foot on their lands. What happens is done thousands of feet below you.
Jaguar if you had read the article you would see these people weren't paid a dime, probably the case in most of these incidents. Why would a corporation pay for anything they can bribe a politician to steal for nothing.
Joe, if you had a clue you would know these morons didn't own the mineral rights, and thus were owed NOTHING. Just because you own the surface does not mean you own the mineral rights. That is something that is completely severable. The mineral right were likely severed decades ago. Why don't you learn about how i works before you make a complete fool of yourself
ripping people off the Great American way!
MLH: You're wrong. They only offer royalties if you own the mineral rights. If you don't they deal with who does. All in this article own their mineral rights. If you simply own the land and not the mineral rights they don't even talk to you. Claiming knowledge about something you know nothing about makes you look foolish.
This is no different from the "forced pooling" laws that many states have enforced for years and years. Why is this just now an issue?
Because it's voting season! Don't we go through this same song and dance with issues every four years? This is nothing new and there will be the new issue of the day once people get bored with this.
This wasn't much of an issue when companies drilling was straight down. With the fairly new horizontal drilling and fracking a well can extend for thousands of feet and run under hundreds of properties belonging to others. It's a fairly new deal. Up until a few years ago wells went straight down on the property they were drilled on.
I live near Hartville, Ohio, but on the other side. As far as I know there is no drilling on our side of Hartville but it's only a matter of time. I told my wife we might as well sign as they are going to take our gas anyway.
My good side: Time to write your elected officials and tell them you oppose fracking and to close any loop holes that allow home owners/citizens to be materially damaged by the companies that use 'land grab' mentality. The health and environmental impacts are obvious and far reaching.
My bad side: The CEO's of fracking companies need to drink a quart of any chemical they don't want to disclose.
Unfortunately I live in Texas and ALL of the politicians who represent my my state and my district are Republicans, and they don't give a tinker's d@## about the people; they only care about the corporations (after all corporations are the Republicans BFFs...)
The oil/gas/energy corporations own Texas and the politicians.
thanks 2%!
PS: Bush is not a Texan he is a blue blood from up north who lives here to avoid paying state taxs.
If you do your homework....the elected officials....name one that is not in bed with the Energy Corporations.
NrthClbs
you are right all of DC is in debt and bed with the 2% and is the 2% or working to get there.
and we all let them get away with because we think we have the same chance to as lucky.
Too bad for most of us we will just be fags for the fire that will warm the hands of the rich.
Yeah, but you can keep him. We don't want him back.
Abby, I hate to disappoint you, but there are plenty of Democrats in your State who haven't lifted a finger to change anything. I live in a state where the Republicans control all the branches of state government, but the Ds were little different when they were in office.
They all cut too many deals to protect each other as they screw the taxpayers. I live in PA, where the fracking boys have bought and paid for the Governor. He doesn't even think that a Doctor should be able to tell a patient what has made them sick if it involves exposure to fracking fluids...
The USA, want to %&*$% our citizens? No problem just bring buckets of cash, everything is for sale in the USA
China is on the prowl for oil and gas reserves. They’ll take them anywhere they can find them, moving aggressively on Latin America and Africa. Now they’ve secured a one-third stake in Chesapeake’s red-hot Eagle Ford holdings, part of a promising, oil-rich shale formation across much of southern Texas. Read about the deal.
reference - http://articles.marketwatch.com/2010-10-11/commentary/30794918_1_cnooc-chesapeake-energy-corp-china-national-offshore-oil
New York, June 21 (FinanceEnquiry.com) – Chesapeake Energy Corp (NASDAQ: CHK) might be bought over by China’s Sinopec Corp in near future.
The Chesapeake asset purchase deal is under active consideration of China’s Sinopec Corp, told the head of Sinopec, Fu Chengyu, in Oklahoma. He also said that a due diligence procedure is underway to complete the other formalities. Fu Chengyu refused to elaborate on type of assets under discussion and the company’s bid amount for the buy out...
According to Chesapeake, the company wants to sell assets including 1.5 million acres of lease holdings in the oil-rich Permian Basin and about 337,000 acres in Ohio. Chesapeake is searching a joint venture partner in the liquids-rich Mississippi Lime Basin.
reference - http://www.financeenquiry.com/chesapeake-energys-usd6-billion-assets-on-sale-chinas-sinopec-corp-may-buy_15806.html
Why Texas is the China of the West
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/why-texas-china-west-rick-perry
hehe
Chesapeake is a member of ALEC, so they can draft "model legislations" that state representatives everywhere then reword and put them to their House as their own.
Corporations are writing laws now, you only THINK you have a voice in government.
If anyone has read this article and still believes that our government gives a rats A$$ about us, you need to be admitted to an insane asylum. The ONLY answer left to the people of the US is to REVOLT and form a new government.
You are seriously mistaken if you think that is a good idea. That's why we have legislatures. There is not going to be a "revolt" in America. We're not Syria. If you had a job and earned all your own money instead of riding on somebody else's bank account, you wouldn't be talking that way.
However, you're entitled. GO to syria and see how much fun a revolt is. You understand that the rights you now enjoy or think you should enjoy will be gone in 60 seconds when the "revolt" starts, and that people with a lot less sympathy toward your welfare needs will take over and won't have a constitution to piddle with. Between "Let's revolt" and "Form a new government", there are going to be hundreds of thousands of lives lost, property rights will be TOTALLY GONE, infrastructure collapsed, it will be the 12th century all over again.
My suggestion is to either get a job and concern yourself with your own income, or travel to a country that more closely fits your ideal and try that for a year. We won't miss you.
No, I'm sorry, the time for that has passed. There will be rubble. Only question is, who's left living in it.
Steve, take a deep breathe. We have legislatures. They are being bought, and have been bought, by Big Oil, Wall Street, and casino operators. So while Kelly's objective may not be feasible, it's certainly understandable.
And for you to assume that Kelly doesn't have a job is quite over the top. And rediculous to boot.
If you'll remember, we didn't have a Constitution to begin with. And it evolved with the Amendments.
Well not you, right! You moved out years ago when you saw that America was F'd up. Right? You refused your last welfare check and just rolled on out to a better country.
Which is where???
A government of the Kelly, by the Kelly and for the Kelly I presume.
Who you talking to? I vote, I work, I pay taxes. I've done jury duty. But I can also see further than the Tea Party talking points.
Drill baby drill, a hole in Boehners head and let the air out. Where is the "hell no" from him when property rights are being stolen. I get it, paying four % more in tax above 250,000 is a rip off, but if a corporation wants your gas, well no problem. It never ceases to amaze me that the "small government" people are always crying about government intrusion, meanwhile basically have no problem with a corporation f..king up the air, land or water, denying medical care, placing obscure terms in their "contract" which allows them to do whatever they want, outright cheating, lying,taking down the whole economy, or as this article says taking your property or potentially your life. No they are the SuperPac folks, the ALEC A-holes, Koch teabaggers, they own America. We SHELL not EXXONerate them, BPrepared, MOBILize, we ARCOming to kick you asses.
Steve Dog, you're claiming others here aren't working, paying taxes, etc. is ridiculous. Interesting how some, the only way they can feel big...is to stand on someone elses shoulders. How can you judge others, when you can't even judge yourself. huh? Get over it and doing something that counts!
Abby, please try not to point fingers at wealthy people as the culprits. It has nothing to do with the "1%". It has everything to do with inhuman corporations and shortsighted politicians. But the people most to blame is ourselves. Apathy is this countries worst enemy. I am a republican, proud of it, but will stand by the side of a liberal democrat if it means ending this evil system of land grabbing, injecting it with contaminants to remove the natural gas and our health and welfare be damned if we don't like it.
Eddie, then you are one of the few and I thank you.
I live in Central Texas where most of the people are Republicans and what you hear and see is a constant drumbeat for oil, gas, etc. no matter what it does to the environment (and that means the flora, fauna, and human life).
And the corporations do own the politicians as they donate huge sums of money to them. Our politicians are bought lock, stock and barrel.
I know some wealthy folks who perceive themselves as "good Christian" people; they attend church with me and donate to the church and charity but do not seem to care that the corporations are ravaging our planet. They are willing to see "drilling" and "fracking" and support "clean-coal" although that it's an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. Why? because it lines their pockets with dividends from the energy industry.
Almost everyone I know down here is a Republican and NOT one of them seems to care about this issue at all unless it's to make sure energy is cheap and plentiful.
When we can no longer drink the water, we will not be able to drink the oil.
Even a bird knows not to foul its own nest -- humans don't seem to have learned that yet.
I don't know if you are aware of this . . . inhuman corporations are owned by the 1%. Their lack of comprehension of our problems is why we have issues with them.
Our real problem is this is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Drilling and fracking and digging for energy enriches energy companies in the short term, and impoverishes the lands they destroy in the long term. To fix it, we should end subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and increase them to renewable companies, since we want a long-term strategy that has some chance of continuing past 10-20 years from now.
Energy mining companies are parasites, mostly owned and operated by wealthy people with little concern for the damage they do to the communities they exploit. Time to end the free ride for these people.
i do not see why we cant make car owner ship cost more. Cars should be a very costly expense. that would bring down the demand for oil and could help make it last longer.
HAHAHAHA!
and this is in TEXAS??!??!
How ironic !
Governor Chuckles and the Bush twins George and Georgie should be thrilled with their investment dividends from Chesapeake!
Research it yourself....it's out there!
Used to be "government of the people, by the people, for the people"
Currently is "government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations".
Quite Sad
Obama was eager to help Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras to develop its oil reserves, with a $2+billion loan. But won’t permit oil exploration in our own country. Could Obama’s desire to help Petrobras be due to the fact that George Soros invested $1 billion in the company – or that China rescued Petrobras in 2009 with a $224 billion investment plan?
Brazil has signed contracts with China – not the U.S. for its oil.
In other words, Obama helped pay for Brazil to supply China with energy...
Late Sunday (Oct 2010), Cnooc Ltd. /quotes/zigman/274848/quotes/nls/ceo CEO +0.23% said it’ll pay $1.1 billion to Chesapeake Energy Corp. /quotes/zigman/126832/quotes/nls/chk CHK +1.30% for a third of the company’s southern Texas shale resources, plus finance another $1 billion in drilling costs.Cnooc emerged as the buyer, he said.
Shiau doesn’t expect any significant opposition to the Chesapeake deal, but he added that “you want to keep an eye on political responses to the joint venture.”
The deal comes five years after Cnooc tried unsuccessfully to buy Unocal for $19 billion (2005), its bid for the California company drawing fierce political resistance in Bush's Washington. Chevon Corp. /quotes/zigman/289939/quotes/nls/cvx CVX +0.61% ended up buying Unocal instead.
reference - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cnooc-statoil-buy-into-eagle-ford-2010-10-11
Now do you understand who the real threat to US energy independance is???
I'll agree a few holdouts shouldn't be allowed to keep hundreds from getting their share of wealth off an oil or gas pool shared by many adjacent properties but even if they can't stop it what justification is there for not being paid their share of revenue from the oil and gas recovered? Why can an oil company issue an ultimatum, take this or get nothing?
America - a once great idea. Anyone who still calls us 'free' just ain't paying attention.
Feel free to pack up. Head on down to a country that more closely provides you with the welfare you desire and yet forbids anyone from making a profit.
Jeez, SIS, just NAME a country that is free compared to us.
Sweden, England, France, Norway, etc, etc, etc.
Your Tea Party talking points are showing, dogman. Especially the idiotic welfare comment.
Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Iceland............ shall I go on?
Steve, your blind following and not questioning (or even being pissed off about what's going on in this country) is exactly why we are in the predicament we are now.
Your stock response is straight out of the 'book' - what you don't realize is that the people upset and trying to do something about it are about a thousand times more patriotic and loyal to this country than you'll ever be sitting on the side and allowing it to happen while continue to yell about how great this version of America is.
Look at the prison population of this country just as a start - thousands of people in jails for something as simple as marijuana, taking their belongings and leaving them with a record that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
We're so free that we have more people in our prisons and jails than the rest of the world COMBINED has in theirs. Freedom isn't free - it costs a heavy @#!%$in fee.
Steve the dog man
Mexico.
They have rich people.
and the poor are free to die or leave.
Justin B-3020259,
Would you rather explore China's remedy for criminals, tax evaders, etc... DEATH
Nearly 70 crimes can carry the death penalty in China including tax fraud, stealing VAT receipts, damaging electric power facilities, selling counterfeit medicine, embezzlement, accepting bribes and drugs offences.
"Every year China has nearly 10,000 cases of the death penalty that result in immediate execution. This is about five times more than all the other death penalty cases from other nations combined," said Chen Zhonglin, a National People's Congress (NPC) delegate from Chongqing municipality.
China has exicuted more people than the world combined for yeras, plus sold their body parts, prior to the exicution...
Executions in the United States, usually one of the world’s biggest users of the death penalty, dropped to 42 in 2007, the lowest since 1994...
I work with many people from the former "east Bloc"- they tell me that TODAY, the Ukraine, Belarus, Ossettia, Kazhakstan, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Czech Republic and Slovakia have much less limitations on their citizens and much better health care than the U.S. In the words of one of my Ukrainian friends:"it costs a lot of money to be sick in the U.S"
A C Robertson: You compare a persons refusal to sell or turn over their property to a corporation with criminals in China? Interesting logic. It's true that in China you can have your land seized at any time without compensation so you're clearly right we should just let them take it and be thankful we don't do it as much when they do it here.
For an article whose headline mentions Fracking, there were only 3 sentences in the article about the practice. And none of them confirmed any harm done by the technique. Just that there were more studies going on. This article only talked about (SHOCK) the nasty practices of oil companies and leases. For each story of the oil company screwing someone there are just as many where the land owner did. It involves money. And typically it is family money. People get really greedy when they think there is oil or gas under their land. It can be really ugly on both sides.
I was in the oil business in Texas and Tennessee many years ago. We drilled and fracked wells. Many of them were shallow in oil drilling terms, less than 2000 ft. There were thousands of these wells drilled and fracked all over Texas. It has been going on for 50+ years. If there were any concrete proof that this practice causes problems in drinking water it would have surfaced 30 years ago. Most of the wells today are considerably deeper which means the possibility of the fracking effort and water meeting are even more remote. This is just the latest fear mongering technique used by the left to stop something they don't like, such as drilling for fossil fuels.
even you don't believe the BS you are spewing....
Why would I not, I lived it and know it to be true. Where do you get your information on fracking?
Pottsie's information on fracking is in Pravda. Every morning. Mother Jones had a nice fact-free article on fracking every month for a year.
"George Bush made money from fracking". Who worries about this? People on welfare who think making money is beneath them when all they have to do is take ours. Thanks, Jag, I agree with you.
Steve I bet I pay more in taxes than you make! The fact that they will not release the contents of the fracking fluid alone is enough to raise a red flag. The fact that people's well contamination aligns perfectly with the beginning of fracking process is questionable. If you accept the premise that corporations are just honest, hard working americans that have a conscience then I won't even bother.
Worrying about the material used during the injection process. Only displays your ignorance of the drilling/fracking procedure. The people in most danger of these are the drillers themselves...
The real dangers to the environment; the safe disposal of the drilling mud/waste water and maintaining the integrity of the drilling/well casing...
Jagaur56: Totally different. Yes they've been fracking for years but these were wells drilled straight down. Now fracking involves wells drilled down to the formation then run for thousands of feet horizontally from the source well and can be under many properties belonging to others. Fracking a vertical well that breaks down the formation a few hundred feet from the well is one thing fracking a horizontal well that runs for thousands of feet under others properties another.
Free market will protect these people from any loss... there is no need to regulate oil companies, they will police themselves... blah blah blah goes the doctrine of unbridled capitalism...
your lack of thought on this post was ironic...
Property rights tend to be absolute. However, one of those nice regulations of oil companies provided a loophole to citizens' property rights. If the government would have stayed out of it, then they wouldn't have been able to legally do this...
HA ha... milidad... in our country corporations are "people" and they are the ones writing the laws! That is why these 'loopholes' favoring them exist! It is not that the government itself is something bad, but a crooked or corrupt government is bad. In US the government is totally sold to special interest groups - from the pro-Israel lobby to big oil. And the sheeple goes back and forth like a yo-yo between the two crooked parties in power.
I was disturbed when, not long after the NY state legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act, they started talking about allowing fracking in the state. Though that seems to have been held off, I fear that the GOP managed to successfully cut a deal whereby they'd accept their defeat in the marriage issue if they received little or no opposition to fracking.
So imagine you are a land owner that has signed a lease and is looking forward to a new pool in the backyard from oil and gas income. 90% of your neighbors are also looking forward to the income. But the oil company cant drill until 100% of the neighbors sign. One family decides they can hold out for a lot more money or sell to someone else, essentially screwing up the deal for all the others.
That is why there is a 90% clause in the Texas Railroad Commission rules. It has nothing to do with a land grab. If 90% of the owners have signed, the assumption is it is a good deal for all. The last 10% can be compelled to go along.
Now assume that the a company that owns an adjacent track of land drills and finds there is no oil and gas. It may not be right, but I could sure see a company trying to back out of paying for any leases where the money has not changed hands. At that point the money is clearly wasted as the rights are worthless. But the landowners expect their mineral rights money even if the land is now worthless.
There are two sides to any of this.
Whether you're against fracking or for it - this is what I can't wrap my head around: The same people that seem to be for INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and freedoms seem to be the same ones that are happy to give rights to (someone else's) land away to a corporation for a pipeline or NG well.
The "90% of neighbours agree" idea seems reasonable - but flies in the face of those who claim to believe that rights of the individual should always trump the rights of the many.
I'd be a lot more pissed off about someone confiscating rights to my home and property than dealing with a tax increase - but the latter is called "the government confiscating your hard-earned money". Taking my land and giving it to someone else (including a foreign corporation) seems to me a lot worse!
GREAT! life is unfair right?
but steal a pizza and you could get life in prison.
Mifo... I'm confused about why you think Republican "voters" are ok with this? Because you hate them and anything that's wrong must be laid at their feet?
Except in this case we are not talking about land. We are talking mineral rights. In most cases the actual land is never touched. And in a lot of cases the mineral right owners are different from the land owners. If this were talking about taking someone's house or car it would be a different discussion. Most people have no clue what is even 1000 ft. below them, much less 5000+ ft. where most drilling is targeted. So to get all worked up as if someone bulldozed their house is a little silly.
I worked on leases that were split up in familys to 100ths of a percent ownership over a few acres. And those mineral right owners in many times were not even located in the same state.
I don't hate Republicans at all. I know it's unheard of on these forums, but I was actually trying to ask a legit question to foster a discussion.
I don't understand. Please help me.
Mifo,
Many local governments have now adopted the policy of, 'Forcing a property owner, to sell to another, when the buyer proposes improvements that would result in HIGHER Tax revenue.'
The Laws of 'eminent domain' have been on the books for decades...
From FindLaw (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/14.html):
The Supreme Court has approved generally the widespread use of the power of eminent domain by federal and state governments in conjunction with private companies to facilitate urban renewal, destruction of slums, erection of low-cost housing in place of deteriorated housing, and the promotion of aesthetic values as well as economic ones. In Berman v. Parker (1954), a unanimous Court observed: ''The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled.'' For ''public use,'' then, it may well be that ''public interest'' or ''public welfare'' is the more correct phrase.
IMO - The localities have taken this too far and personnel rights have been forgotten.
I have known many people (usually retires) that have been forced to sell their long-time homes. Though usually it is due to rising; taxes, insurance cost, property maintenance, etc. The cost of living out-paces their limited incomes...
What's the justification for paying them nothing unlike eminent domain? I think more people are appalled by a company giving land owners a take what we offer or we'll take the oil and gas and you'll get nothing ultimatum.
Here is the harm in Fracking: People are making money on it, and the communists get all itchy in the undershorts when anyone makes a profit at anything. It's evil to make an investment of time, hard work and money and see a profitable return on anything, right comrades? I've got your hammer and sickle right here.
NOBODY who has a job and pays their way in life is worried about the 1%, the 99%, any percent except their own. Don't like fracking? Get a job, get off your governmental subsidies and get on with your life. If fracking somehow wrecks your well or septic system (if you've got any) then sue the company. Otherwise, if someone drills at an angle and sucks the gas and oil from 2000 feet below your basement....(or your mommie's basement, since you don't have a job) Boo Hoo.
Let me see if I have this straight.
I own my land and, by extension, any inherent profits to be made by my land.
Someone else want to profit from my property without my permission.
Communist philosophy dictates that ownership rights are negated; property rights are relegated to the common good (as in, corporate profit).
Those who wish to co-opt my ownership rights are the good guys.
I am a Communist because I don't want them to do so.
Have I got it right?
No RTSOB just because you own the SURFACE, does NOT mean you own the minerals. WHhy don't you learn something about it.
Rich people legally stealing since 1776!
And who, pray tell, DOES own the mineral rights?
If Chesapeake can assume those rights, without compensation, why would they offer to compensate Bahndari in the first place? That would be a pretty stupid business practice. If "forced pooling" is to be the method for acquiring those rights, it must mean that the Bahndaris owned the rights to begin with; you don't have to provide injunctions to acquire what is already yours.
Yes MLH, I'm well aware of what the law is in this regard; I am arguing that it is bad law.
By the way, my comments above were directed at Steve the dog man, who seems to be wholly ignorant about what it means to be a Communist.
Steve also doesn't seem to know what it means to be a fascist.
Steve: please get off the welfare soapbox. You've mentioned welfare in every comment you've made.
Steve is a welfare recipient. He protest too much. He thinks fascist, socialist, nazi, muslim, marxist, obama are all the same. He can't help it!
If someone else doesn't have a past deed retaining the mineral rights when surface rights were sold then you own both. This article is about people who did own the mineral rights. If they didn't own then they wouldn't even talk to them they'd deal with those that did.
a hah hah. Those Afghanis sitting around the fire smoking their pipes know what goes on over here. They don't want big oil with big government and the courts in their pocket messing with them. They just want the U.S. to leave them alone and have the U.S. big oil boys make the life of the U.S. people miserable, not them.
Steve the dog man:
Your comments are way out of bounds. Making nasty assumptions where none are warranted does not add to the discussion. Please go away from this post.
gailinarkansas - have you ever told someone their comments were nasty when they called a "Tea Party" member a "Tea Bagger"? I would wager that you have not. Dog Man's comments were not out of bounds.... Who are you to shun an opinion from this thread?
Gailinarkansas,
Have you ever heard of a little word called 'fascism', nice introduction. And while I think DogMan is a pig, he still has a voice, no matter how much I dislike it.
We already know the big oil boys own the government. Today its on record Chesapeke owns the courts and today their stock went up 1.5% when the dow was posting a loss. A big Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah to the American sheep.
And you thought our elected officials where supposed to look out for all of us. Instead it looks like there only looking out for 1% of us, so if we putt them there, and we can kick them out of there. WE ALL HAVE A SAY AT THE VOTING BOOTH, so get off the couch and vote this November. It's time we take America back.
just make sure to bring id. and be white.
Yep, because your access to id is determined by your race somehow... right?
If you have no way to win, just call your opponents racist.
The Right openly contends this is aimed at non-white voters. i did not pull that out of the air.