Ban Fracking? Rep. Tom Reed Says Government Should Pay Up
Back in January, Republican Tom Reed, the Ithaca area’s House Rep., proposed to Congress the Defense of Property Rights Act in response to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s state-wide fracking ban.
According to Reed’s website, the legislation “would defend private property rights by providing an option for compensation on behalf of those unfairly harmed by government action. It would also open the judicial process in a more fair and equitable way.”
Reed, who smashed Democratic challenger Martha Robertson in the November election, recently published an op-ed in the Ithaca Voice explaining the legislation more in-depth and linking measures like the fracking ban–legislation and regulations Reed believes stifle business growth–to the collapse of the Southern Tier’s economy.
Reed’s piece begins:
“New York had more electoral votes than any other state in every presidential election from 1812 to 1948. It has lost electoral votes in every redistricting since 1950. It stands at 29 now and has fallen behind California, Texas and soon Florida. Upstate has borne the brunt of the population loss.
Washington can’t figure out why this is happening, and neither can Albany, our state capital. But Neil Vitale knows. Vitale is a farmer in Steuben County in New York’s Southern Tier. He was my personal guest to President Obama’s State of the Union Speech. And it is obvious to him what happened. “What I’ve seen in our area is farmers going out of business often because of regulation and with the unemployment rate so high,” he told me. “People just can’t find work to support themselves, let alone a family. They are leaving in droves.”
New York had a chance to revitalize the Southern Tier. It could have joined the natural gas boom years ago. Its Marcellus Shale would have provided thousands of well-paying jobs that could’ve put many of these families back to work and lifted many out of poverty.
But our governor, Andrew Cuomo, thought otherwise. He banned fracking throughout New York. Now, the only way many of these farmers can see any return on their property is to sell out and leave.”
In response to Reeds op-ed published on Monday, Ithaca local Barbara Coyle submitted an op-ed response in the Ithaca Voice citing four rebuttals to the congressman.
“1) Congressman’s Reed is not seriously representing the majority of the people in Ithaca as your title suggests. His blatant derision of Ithaca during the last election cycle showed his cards in regards to “representing” Ithaca seriously.
2) Reed’s arguments in favor of high volume slick water hydrofracking read as if they were written by the oil and gas industry. Perhaps they were. Any serious analysis of Pennsylvania’s experience with fracking over the last 10 years would result in a perfect example of boom to bust scenario. Landmen promising the moon only to deliver diminishing royalties, toxic wastewater holding ponds, damaged roads, spills, contaminated aquifers, poisoned water & air and short term jobs that mostly went to out of state industry workers. Not to mention increases in violent, sexual assault and drug crimes.
3) NY State could have joined the race to frack it’s shale with toxic chemicals years ago as Reed suggests. Instead our Governors during this period wisely decided to hold the moratorium until there was sufficient peer reviewed science available to base this decision. Governor Cuomo and his Health Department looked at that science and issued the ban. Good for them.
4) Pennsylvania has become the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the shale region. The canary is sick. Reed is after fools gold with his proposed Defense of Property Act. The Oil and Gas Industry lies and lies again to get you to sign over your grandchildren’s health and welfare. New York is on the brink of a renewable energy renaissance. Let’s get behind supporting a clean and green revolution in New York for our children’s sake. Congressman Reed – being from a political party that dismisses science and derides scientists – might have a hard time with this. But the people of Ithaca are willing and ready.”
It seems the basis of Reed’s legislation is rooted in the idea of eminent domain–that the government must pay fair market value for property which it seizes through its Constitutional power of eminent domain. Reed argues that the landowners barred from extracting the wealth in the form of oil and gas from their property via fracking are victims of non-compensated eminent domain.
“Farmers who can’t derive the benefits of oil or natural gas on their property because of government action are due compensation as certainly as those who are forced to move so a road can be built,” writes Reed in his op-ed.
As much as I detest the state’s fracking ban, Reed’s legislation treads a very tenuous line. I agree farmers and landowners precluded from fracking their own land because do-gooders in Albany do not want them to is unjust, but Reed’s legislation only seeks to expand the role of government rather than limit it. Whenever you get into the business of receiving cash from the government–whether they are handouts, subsidies, or reparations–you tread into the murky waters of victimization, wealth redistribution, and the creation of ever-expansive bureaucracies tasked with sorting everything out (at least, in theory).
A better solution, from Albany, would turn over the decision to frack to localities. Let the counties vote, or even the cities individually. Or all the cities who have a common water supply–let them vote on the issue in one referendum. If County A wants to frack by the will of the people directly, let them. If County B thinks the risks of fracking are too high, they don’t have to. Isn’t this a much more democratic way to go about things? Local government decisions are infinitely better than state or federal ones, because at the local level is where each individual has much greater influence and where members of government are least removed form the general populace. Additionally, if your county votes against the way you did, it’s much easier to cross county lines than to leave the state (though I think most New York residents are looking to leave anyways).
In this vein, though I understand where Rep. Reed is coming from, I respectfully disagree with his proposed legislation. The solution is not more government, but less government.
