Posted on 06/08/2013 11:37:15 PM PDT by neverdem
Few issues divide Democrats more than energy policy, as we've learned as unions and environmentalists fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. More evidence now comes from California, where greens have lost an attempt to ban oil and gas hydraulic fracturing.
Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank and file revolted. The bill lost 37-24, with 12 Democrats joining 25 Republicans to defeat it. Another 18 Democrats abstained, and it's a good bet they were "no" votes who didn't want to publicly cross their leadership. This was a rare rout of the Sierra Club and other greens that denounce "fracking" for polluting water and inducing earthquakes, among other horrors. They blamed the oil and gas lobby, but that hides the real story.
The votes for the fracking ban came mainly from the wealthy, mostly white Democratic coastal districtsSan Francisco, Santa Monica and Malibu. Opponents were mostly from central California, areas that are poor and minority, with rates of unemployment of 12% or more. Six of the seven black assembly Democrats voted against the ban or abstained. Though the Assembly speaker is Hispanic, most of the rank-and-file Latino Democrats refused to vote for the ban.
These Democrats understand that fracking is already happening in California, especially in energy-rich Bakersfield. According to the California Independent Petroleum Association, about one-third of the active wells now use this innovative drilling process that uses chemicals, sand and water to crack shale rock. A moratorium would throw thousands of Californians out of work, and not those in Beverly Hills. Oil and gas jobs typically pay salaries that range from $50,000 to $100,000 a year and many of them are unionized.
California sits atop the vast Monterey Shale that contains an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil. That's twice...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What the heck ping, but in the idiom of a grunt.
In short, the limousine liberals with their holier than thou (if that's the right phrase to use!) attitude. Sorry, with the high price of gasoline here in California, anything that will send the price higher won't cut it with voters. Does anyone remember the movie Promised Land starring Matt Damon, which proved not only to be a box-office failure but was rightfully denounced for its innumerable inaccuracies?
This is great news! My sister inherited land from Dad that has natural gas under it, in Kings County CA.
We were afraid the enviro-weenies were going to successfully try and stop fracking.
The American Land Conservancy has been trying to buy those parcels. I suspect for a land swap involving the BLM, as in Nevada 20-years ago, the one that involved Sen.Harry Reid.
I'd love to also see those beautiful pumping stations that can be looked at off shore from the beach putting out that good old Black Gold again!
The environmentalists should be behind that as it would take the pressure off and we wouldn't have those tar balls (from oil oozing out the ocean floor) messing up the pretty beaches anymore.
If true blue (red white and) Patriotic Americans ever get the reins again here in California we will indeed be the Golden State again.
DRILL BABY DRILL... is now FRACK BABY FRACK!!!
I hope that all works out for the family.
Several states are talking about selling government owned land to the citizens (Nevada for one, the gov owns most of thT state), that would be a real boon here in California.
Your sister needs to keep watch so the enviroWACKOS don’t dump a pail of water on her land and declare it a wetland!
Oh yea You Betcha!
Oh My.....they went a bit too deep.....and struck oil instead.
Now there is an idea, oops struck oil...
Heh, reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies, “bubblin’ crude”
Who owns the mineral rights?
My sister now does. This land has been in the family for over a century.
Good luck to her.
Most real estate transactions now-a-days don’t convey mineral rights. It’s good that your family has owned it for so long.
That’s a real treasure.
Sounds like the title of a BattleStar Galactica Episode...
As the article points out, they are talking about the Monterray Shale, of which, a large part of it is split estate. The surface rights are privately owned and the subsurface rights or mineral rights are owned by the BLM.
Obama's Interior Dept first auctioned a smaller portion of these BLM subsurface rights in 2011 and then a larger portion in Dec 2012.
When it comes to drilling in a split estate, the surface owners don't receive royalties so they usually oppose drilling.
Whereas SatinDoll's sister owns both the surface and sub-surface rights, there are going to be a landowners opposed to this drilling because they have to suffer the activity of drilling but won't receive a royalty. NIMBYs.
The sister's land is probably not covered by this activity thus far, but a oil company land man could approach her in the future about a drilling lease. It is always a good idea to talk to a lawyer first.
What are the chemicals used and are the same chemicals used at every frack site?
I'm a 'drill baby drill' kinda guy, just curious.
The days of Jed Clampett’s easy oil, Spindletop, etc, were long gone decades ago.
Good news for California. This was sanity prevailing in the form of raw self interest, which is about as close to enlightened as Democrats get. I will say that a part of me (probably the bad part) wouldn’t have minded seeing Cali pass the ban thereby hastening its slide into liberal dystopia. Now they’ll have a thriving energy sector propping things up.
A couple good introduction on the subject.
http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/hydraulic_fracturing/fracturing_101.html
http://fracfocus.org/hydraulic-fracturing-process
I guess the people who profit from the fracking can buy a Democrat.
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