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planning hubris

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Problems with the 07-2011 Draft Oil & Gas Regs proposed for Elbert County Zoning

Page 5:  “…unless approval has been granted pursuant to these regulations from the Director of Community & Development Services (C&DS) or the Board of County Commissioners (Board).”
Are we setting up an unelected czar of oil and gas zoning enforcement, unaccountable to the voters?

Page 6:  “the County Attorney or where the Board deems it appropriate, the District Attorney……may [act]”
Here again, should enforcement of zoning be allowed without the approval of an elected official?

Page 21:  “Safety practices in accordance with state and federal law, including the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970….”
Elbert County should not be in the business of enforcing federal OSHA law.

Page 23:  “The oil and gas facility shall not cause significant degradation of wildlife, including any federal, state or Colorado Natural Heritage Program-identified species of concern, or to their habitat.  At a minimum, the operation shall comply with the CDOW’s recommended…..”
The CDOW, Colorado and the federal government can enforce their own wildlife regulations.  Elbert County does not need to duplicate those efforts.

Page 23:  “When planning facilities, the Applicant shall consult and reference the current wildlife concurrence data, including the CDOW’s Natural Diversity Information Source database…”
Bio-diversity is buzzword science with no greater purpose than stopping development.  It has no place in industry zoning regulations.

Page 25:  “install wildlife crossovers and escape ramps where the trench crosses well-defined game trails”
Presumably this would be for the really smart or well trained wild game, who know how to use such devices.

Page 26:  “The applicant shall identify the proposed source of fresh or potable water required for the oil and gas facility and dust control, along with a letter from the Colorado Division of Water Resources or a copy of the Water Court decree indicating that the water supply source is acceptable for the use at the oil and gas facility.”
Here again, water regulation falls outside of Elbert County’s jurisdiction.  It’s a matter for the State Engineer.

Page 37:  “the right of the county to determine land uses”
Isn’t it the people’s right to determine land use within allowed limits?  I thought government in America was based on limitations, not rights.

Page 39:  “No oil and gas facilities shall cause a reduction in solar radiation…”
Isn’t it a reach to blame the existence or absence of solar radiation on an oil well?

Page 39:  “Greenhouse Gas Reduction”
Zoning regulations should not incorporate the spurious science of global warming language.

Page 40:  “The county finds that the standard industry practice of injecting highly toxic substances under high pressure into the earth for the purpose of fracturing geologic formations poses an unacceptable risk of polluting these invaluable ground water resources.”
This statement ascribes a harmful intent to the oil and gas industry as a “standard practice.”  The statement is prejudicial, unfounded, and not conducive to sound science or good industry relations.

If the Community and Development Services department needs a toxic blend to regulate, look to the toxic combination of subjects below under which this post is filed.

The Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle

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“DECEMBER 14, 2011

Congress mandated purchase of 250 million gallons in 2011. Actual production: 6.6 million.

‘We’ll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”
—George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union address [Read more…]

Stimulus II

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Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, said Congress must pass the American Jobs Act immediately so Americans can be put to work “rebuilding outdated and dangerous roads and bridges and ensuring our kids have first-class schools….keep[ing] teachers in our classrooms, police on the beat, healthcare workers at our hospitals and clinics, and ensure[ing] that we have enough firefighters to protect our communities.”

She says [in so many words] the Occupy Wall Street protests are a new spark of destiny for a new union resurgence to give every American a job, presumably working in road and bridge construction, public education or as a first responder of some sort.

Leave aside, for the moment, that Stimulus I already swelled the ranks of police, fire, teacher, road construction and school janitor staffs with fresh new faces, and leave aside that Stimulus I already re-equipped first responders and construction crews across the nation with new fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, SWAT vans, and all the gear that goes into them.

Stimulus I and II [the American Jobs Act] are funded with public debt and they don’t add a nickel of net new value to the economy.  They are wealth redistribution schemes that move capital from the productive private sector into the consuming public sector, with a large amount of government overhead consumed in the process.  They don’t add any productive–wealth generating–capacity to the economy.  Public sector employers can only hand out paychecks for as long as the debt Ponzi scheme funding them keeps functioning.  The jobs they provide don’t create products, don’t yield profit, don’t generate capital, and don’t lead to new investment.

Eventually, perhaps soon, the well will run dry on public debt and a whole lot of unfunded public employees will become very angry.  Many of them will be well armed for a living.

Only jobs created through private capital can potentially–there’s always risk–produce a profit and thereby build new capital which can grow the economy and create more new jobs.  Only private sector jobs can replicate capital to grow new jobs.  Publicly financed jobs can never do this.  They may look nice and shiny driving down the road in a brand new fire truck or police vehicle, but those vehicles are symbols of a debt that will never be re-payed, and a job that will never create wealth to re-invest and grow our economy.

Moreover, public sector jobs pull scarce labor out of the private sector and thereby raise the cost of labor to the private sector.  Increased costs reduce the private sectors productive capacity to generate profit, capital and wealth, and to create more productive jobs.  In addition, more public sector jobs enlarge vocal voting constituencies who advocate for more public spending, more public sector jobs, more taxes, and more non-productive public-debt-financed economic activity.

It is a pernicious, vicious cycle, and Mary Kay Henry and the Occupy Wall Street bunch couldn’t be more wrong.

The Fragile Community

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WikiLeaks and a fragile community – David Brooks NYT Opinion

Consider the effect computers have had on the insurance industry, and consequentially, on all of the risks (health, life, fire, accident, loss) funded by the insurance industry.  Prior to computers, the historical price for an insurance provider to cover a beneficiary was the product of static market conditions.  Insurance is a financial service product based on knowledge of risk, and the knowledge of various risks to beneficiaries had been stable for many years.  With the advent of computerization, beneficiaries and risk could be correlated in the machine so that insurers could now choose which beneficiaries were least likely to cost them benefits.  Computer correlation of beneficiary data fundamentally shifted the bargaining power between insurers and beneficiaries, and as we can see with health insurance, the consequences to this radical shift are still playing out in a myriad of market and government reactions. [Read more…]

health insurance crime

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I see where community organizers are fanning out into the inner cities, setting up offices and combing social networking sites like Facebook to enroll children in SCHIP and adults in MEDICAID before these citizens turn into federal criminals in 2014 for lack of health insurance.  Of course, doctors can’t afford to serve MEDICAID and SCHIP patients because reimbursement rates are low and claim denials are high, but the important thing is to keep those community organizers employed between election cycles.  One wonders just who are these people who can afford the time and means to engage in social networking while also meeting the means test for MEDICAID and SCHIP eligibility.

drum beats

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TIMES SQUARE ATTACK RESPONSE:  NONE DARE CALL IT THINKING

On May 1, 2010, when news of the Times Square terrorist attack first broke, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, on national television, as to who might have done it, “If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something . . . .”  Bloomberg was not alone.  U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that there was no evidence that the attack was “anything other than a one-off,” a British expression for “one of a kind.”  At least the country was spared President Obama telling Americans that they should not “jump to conclusions,” as he did after the Fort Hood Massacre when the media reported that “Major Hasan . . . killed 13 and left 31 injured after he jumped on to a desk screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great – and fired on defenseless colleagues.” [Read more…]

Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Aristotle

"Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved."

Karl Popper

“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”