a delay could also be forced by activists along the proposed pipeline route through Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. About 750 landowners have refused to allow the company, TransCanada Corp, on their land, setting the stage for court battles over compulsory purchase. ...Yes, I do think property rights are limited and contingent. Yes I do think we need energy. No I don't think oil sands would be a bad idea if it weren't for greenhouse gases. And no, I don't think gun rights are sacred. So whose side am I on?
environmental concerns alone did not turn Daniel's neighbours against the pipeline. They claim that bullying did.Locals in east Texas accuse TransCanada's agents of threatening them with compulsory purchase and of dismissing their concerns about safety in case of a leak.
...
Daniel said the company did not bother to notify him when it sent the first survey team to his property in 2008. A neighbour told him outsiders had been on his land. He found surveyors' stakes with flags reading PL. "My heart was just falling," he said. "I knew that meant pipeline."
The anger spread to Tea Party conservatives, the local chapter of Hawks – which stands for Handguns Are Worth Keeping Sacred – and even those who owed their fortunes to oil.
Well, there are two other principles at work. Anything that slows down the oil sands is good for the world. And it's never a good idea to mess with Texas.
Seriously? The world often fails to line up with out preconceptions. This comment at the linked article is sensible:
No, their idea is that the world is big and property rights are absolute, and what I do on my property is not your business, and if you don't like it, get your own damn property. This response is not surprising to me, though I find it amusing. It is very much tied into the idiotic grass roots opposition to high speed rail or really to just about anything that amounts to new infrastructure.Mike Richards
3 March 2011 12:47AM
I wonder whether the Canadian pipeline company was unprepared for it. American "liberals" are acting as conservatives these days, protecting existing arrangements and established proprieties against wild experiments propagated by an impulsive rabble. And "conservatives" are localist, populist, isolationist, survivalists, with much in common with what the rest of the world considers the far left. It's a topsy turvy country if you ask me.
The thinking* of the Tea Party does my head in:
They do everything possible to sabotage a switch from oil, blocking tightening up on emissions, gutting regulators and arguing against science. Their favourite politicians rail against America importing crude from OPEC nations because that strengthens the 'turrists'. They deny that extracting tar sand is an environmental catastrophe and they've spent the last few years saying how wonderful it is to have Alberta's oil reserves right next door.
Now they're going to try and block a reliable supply of their favourite brown liquid (after tea).
Sooner or later one of them is going to commit a grave heresy by admitting America doesn't have much crude left and it might be a good idea to cut down on consumption. At which point they'll be carted off to a giant wicker Bachmann.
*yeah I'm being unduly charitable.