In Inventing Freedom, Daniel Hannon writes, “English-speaking peoples still commonly, and exceptionally, talk of “the law of the land.” Not the King’s law, not God’s law, but the law of the land–a set of rights and obligations immanent in the country, growing incrementally, passed down as part of the patrimony of each new generation.”
As President Obama continues to demonstrate, the Left do not hold the law of the land in the high regard traditionally upheld by “English-speaking peoples.” Conservative writers and speakers chronicle this feature of our new age on a daily basis, and mentioning it here has earned this writer a variety of libels–short of using the blood of Leftist babies to make matzah balls, though the day is still young.
Anyway, with due respect to the objectives of the Left with regard to Elbert County oil & gas development, I find their chosen tactic – to cause local zoning operational conflicts with COGCC – legally insufficient. It is my 1st Am. right to make the finding and to publish it.
Over the years I’ve documented in these pages evidence of a Leftist policy to push Elbert County into expensive litigation over oil & gas regulation, and county vs. states rights. I maintain that the county cannot afford that expensive litigation, and I applaud the BOCC for avoiding it thus far.
Rather than address the substance of my analysis, the Left comes back with libel on the front end, and politicking out the back door. The Left continue to push for operationally conflicting local regulation and they just don’t care about the legalities.
The Sierra Club recently entered the Elbert County oil & gas political arena by sponsoring a letter containing the following language:
Elbert County needs strong oil and gas regulations to protect our air, water, land, public health, safety, and quality of life. We are asking you to protect Elbert County residents by adopting regulations which would prohibit open pits for toxic produced water and prohibit spraying of toxic produced water to mitigate dust on county roads.
We also urge you to support citizen-drafted MOUs which would protect Elbert County citizens by increasing drilling set-backs to 1320 feet from homes, require green completion systems to reduce air emissions, require operators to notify residents within a mile of production activities, and increase baseline water sampling.
Please do everything in your power to ensure that Elbert County residents and their property are protected from the toxic spills, groundwater contamination, ozone-inducing emissions and other impacts that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has documented. The industry averages more that a spill per day across Colorado and has been found to be responsible for more than half of the ozone pollution causing federal air quality violations in nine Front Range counties. A recent Colorado School of Public Heath study found an increase in the incidence of congenital heart defects within 10 miles of drilling operations.
You have a duty to protect Elbert County from these impacts and risks and we are relying on you to do so.
Thank you for your consideration.
Well, the President may be able to walk all over Congress and get away with blatant constitutional violations, but Elbert County need not follow his “leadership.” The duty of the BOCC runs first to the law of the land, and I am relying on the BOCC to not break that trust. Under our system, the ends don’t justify the means.
If the Left cannot abide that framework, there are plenty of totalitarians in the world who would be glad to have them as subjects.