Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
New York Times editorial, 2005 – The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday that the economically troubled city of New London, Conn., can use its power of eminent domain to spur development was a welcome vindication of cities’ ability to act in the public interest. It also is a setback to the “property rights” movement, which is trying to block government from imposing reasonable zoning and environmental regulations.
New York Times, 2011 – “Eminent Domain Fight Has a Canadian Twist: A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property…”
Nice catch by Mark L.
Hahahahaha. That’s almost a better enterprise for proving the point than the Lost Liberty Hotel. Don’t remember it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Liberty_Hotel
This is not how to make friends and influence people. This is the attitude that actually grows “home grown” terrorists. Someone at the top at Keystone has a severe case of shit for brains.
The American Constitution has become waste paper under the Democrats. Just like our bill of rights was annulled under Trudeau. Along with Private property laws.
Every thing from due process to free speech has been twisted by Lawyers & a judicuary who hates liberty or free men. Except for their clients, the criminals.
New York Times, 2011 – “Eminent Domain Fight Has a Canadian Twist: A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property…
That’s not a Canadian twist – try this on:
Enviro-parasites write McGuinty’s ‘reasonable’ environmental legislation – which erodes the profits and land values of farmers who dumbly sit and let it happen, as their farm organizations hail the process as a good thing.
Now that’s a true ‘Canadian’ twist.
Well, if the NYT is to be believed, Trans Canada is being a little heavy-handed.
But it certainly appears that at least some of the landowners involved are resisting for political reasons rather than for any legitimate concerns about the safety of the pipeline or for disruptions to their land use.
And you simply cannot please everybody. If you build a road, or railway, or pipeline or transmission line from Point A to Point B, it has to cross the land between those points, preferably in as direct a way that the geography allows.
If the project builder offers fair compensation for the right-of-way, most landowners should simply accept it. For the few holdouts, eminent domain may be the only recourse. Diverting the line is a bad precedent to set, as if you do it for one holdout, others will want it, too, and you end up with a longer route than planned, and greater expense.
And pipelines have to be the least obtrusive of any major transportation artery. They are mostly underground, and silent, and in most cases, you can farm right over them.
After 40 years of Environmental protest,
loss of nuclear power plants, etc..
Anything the tree huggers are against,
95 percent of Americans are for..
Build it,
and put up an environmental fence with lasers.
And you simply cannot please everybody. If you build a road, or railway, or pipeline or transmission line from Point A to Point B, it has to cross the land between those points, preferably in as direct a way that the geography allows.
That’s what road allowances are for. Or, they can do like Alberta, and spy on and intimidate people, so the Red gov’t can use public funds to further private interests.
Wild Rose, you can’t begin the shakeup soon enough…
The only stupid questions are the ones not asked. Here is a stupid question:
Why not build a gas refinery plant in Montana [or on Alberta side of boarder] and truck the gasoline to the markets by rail or truck?
If it were built on Canadian/Alberta side, it would help Canadians as well. More jobs in Canada/Alberta … too simple a solution. If the Americans do not want the jobs, we can use the jobs here.
Yes, no reason we cannot refine the oil here. Makes too much sense, I guess…doesn’t fit in with the communitarian plans…
@ Clown Party and fiddle. I agree, but I think the Nimby crowd is the problem. No one wants a refinery near them.
@Clown Party:
The reason no new refineries are being built are due to the huge costs, excessive regulation (environmental assessments, etc.,) NIMBYism and the fact that the damned enviro-mental cases will simply protest and stall them, too.
Whenever I see an NDP or Liberal talking head on TV talking about how we could build refineries here and create Canadian jobs, they conveniently leave out the facts above.
Clown Party
“Why not build a gas refinery plant in Montana [or on Alberta side of boarder] and truck the gasoline to the markets by rail or truck?
If it were built on Canadian/Alberta side, it would help Canadians as well.”
Due to the different constitutional setup in the US…each state has fuel standards which would result in that proposed refinery which ever side of the border only supplying Montana.
Motor ain’t just motor oil and gasoline ain’t just gasoline….due to the various octane, additives which vary from state by state. This is why Florida and California were the first states to ban tetra-ethyl lead in fuel.
Imposing a federal standard would solve this but would involve further expansion of federal government which is not a desired outcome….IMHO.
sasquatch 9:31
I see your point, and well taken, yet lead free gasoline is a standard across North America. In Cannada we already have three levels of octane at the pumps … I see no problem in that area.
Would they not face the same problem in Texas? It is produced there, do they have separate refinaries for each state?
Just courious.
Clown Party
“Would they not face the same problem in Texas? It is produced there, do they have separate refinaries for each state?”
Not really. Currently the refining/distribution infrastructure copes with this….but the infeed position is in Texas….cheaper and easier to pump the crude all the way to Texas than create a new refining /distribution network. It’ the same reason the bird chopping giant fans and solar panels are incompatible with the elctricity grid in most provinces.
To get Douglas Point/Bruce power into the grid enormous separate power lines had to be constructed to move the power the power markets of London, Kitchener Waterloo and the GTA. These were major projects built concurently with the construction of Douglas Point.
Perhaps fortunately the Lake Erie wind farms do not create such a dilema…because they simply produce so little power.
The cancellation of the Mississauga Ng generator due to uninformed NIMBY, was totally assine due to the placement of the generator close to the load. Pickering’s placement made some sense for the same reason.
Hydro Electric’s basic problem was/is the need to conduct the power from a distance….without Tesla’s genius..hydro would have been a non-starter.
Again, doesn’t anyone understand how many pipelines there are traversing the USA and Canada? This is the most cost effective way of moving petrochemicals to market. See http://www.mapsearch.com/content/dam/mapsearch/site-images/Petroleum-Bundle-big.gif
Most of your gasoline moves through pipelines from refineries to break out terminals.
WTF is a gas refinery?
“WTF is a gas refinery?”
Your shorts, then your pants.
“A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property…”
______________
“Confiscate” is a rhetorical device, intended to imply heavy-handedness. But the remainder of the sentence makes it clear the company is pursuing its interests through legal means. Best to ignore editorials written by the Dem’s public relations firm.
RevDream:
The problem with the Chief’s Bill of Rights was it was an ordinary act of the federal parliament, not a constitutional amendment, and as such, had no force in either provincial or municipal law, unlike today’s Charter. However, it is still cited in case law today, particularly because it contains a section that refers to the “right to enjoyment of property”, which is conspicuously missing from Trudeau’s ego-driven grab bag.
Here’s the inimitable, and prescient, Noel Coward singing his hilarious “There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner”:
“. . . We’re going to unpack our troubles from our old kit bag . . . and wait until we drop down dead . . . while the press and the politicians, nag, nag, nag . . . Hooray, hooray, hooray, misery’s on the way . . . Hooray, hooray, hooray, suffering and dismay . . . we’ll wait until we drop down dead . . .”
Coward also predicts the death of democracy and the rise of the Reds and Pinks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCZCv98XKFs
Clown Party and Fiddle,
I work in Fort McMurray with Oil Sands projects. We have a huge problem with the lack of skilled labor available to build these refineries. Also the High cost and inefficiency of skilled labor in Alberta is one of the worst in the world. By next year with the amount of projects in Fort McMurray that will be in construction Foreign workers from overseas will be required which defeats the purpose of building here to keep money here.
The refineries in the US have capacity for the product so there wouldn’t be any major capital spending in order to start producing for the market.
If we were to build more refineries it would take away the capital and labor required to build the Extraction plants and Upgraders which is where the real money is at.
Tayler,
That is why I asked the “stupid” question. I am learning a lot from the answers given above. You, and others, have cleared up several things … after all, if you do not ask, then one will stay in the dark on some matters. Thanks.
PS I will still probably have “stupid” questions.
The refineries along the gulf coast are already equipped to handle heavy crude. They are presently getting it from Venezuela. Since that supply is not as secure as Canadian heavy crude, they would like to have another source. Since those refineries are already constructed and operating, it is more economical to have the bitumen refined there rather than go through all of the cost and trouble of constructing new refineries elsewhere.
Too the point of the juxtaposition ….. The consternation this will cause is a thing of joy to me.
The only problem is that the sorts of people who support emminent domain use for the benefit of local governments … who will abuse the power … are the same sort who think they can keep it from happening to them or that it “will never” happen to them.
To take a line from Blogger Joe Noory (NoPasaran) …”They are having their anuses occupied…” and justly so.
This eminent domain thing is certainly not turning out the way the Lefties planned it, eh? And aren’t they just up in arms about it!
This is why I say if Harper wants to kill the Human Rights commission all he has to do is appoint Catholic priests and maybe some tub thumping evangelicals to it. Couple of well publicized cases and the Liberals will be shrieking to have it shut down.
I wonder if the same level of resistance to this pipeline would exist if,rather than TCPL out of Calgary, it was Kinder Morgan of Houston who was seeking to build the pipeline?
Just asking…