Obama: Companies should face higher charges for drilling on federal land

Fuel Fix ^ | January 13, 2016 | Associated Press

[thackney]

President Barack Obama signaled in his final State of the Union address Tuesday night that fossil fuel companies could face higher charges when mining on federal lands.

Obama said that he's going to push to change the way the federal government manages its oil and coal resources to better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and the planet.

[thackney]

Excerpt for AP

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Shouldn’t be federal lands. They should be state lands.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

He wants to do to oil what he did to coal.

[Jim W N]

Me: States, repossess your lands and kick the feds out.

Deny the feds from unconstitutionally holding your state lands outside of the specific requirements for limited constitutional allowance (Art I, Se 8, Cl 17) of federal ownership within a state.

[Paladin2]

Sell the land, pay down the debt.

[Lionheartusa1]

The Fed. only owns 10 square miles of land called Washington DC and some of the US seaports . All other land is deemed owned by the state or the private sector .

[Jim from C-Town]

Of course they should.

The massive 40% tax on their profits, the 18.4 Cents per gallon excise tax, Plus all the state and local excise taxes, 28 Cents in Ohio,) and all those exploration, extraction fees, payroll taxes and usage fees are simply not enough for tall the hard work the government does trying to kill all industry and private sector activity in the country.

[Jim from C-Town]

I happen to live in a state that has almost no Federal land. In some Western states the Federal government owns a vast majority of the land.

Outside of National Forests and National Parks, they should divest their interest in the land by selling it to private parties and using the money to pay of the national debt. Dealing with all that land is just a massive waste of time, energy and resources.

[Dick Bachert]

QUESTION 1: How much land is owned and controlled by Washington?

ANSWER: See the map below.

QUESTION 2: WHY??

ANSWER: Anyone...anybody...HELLLOOOO!  (crickets)

FACT THAT SHOULD CONCERN US ALL: The federal government owns or controls more land in the nation that there is east of the Mississippi. That's a great way to, if not totally destroy the states, erase their borders and the STATE sovereignty the Founders attempted to preserve.

What does the Constitution authorize?

Article 1, section 8 Clause 17: "The congress shall have power...to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings;"

Notice that all the structures mentioned are defensive in nature. Have recent federal governments been defending the country -- REALLY defending this place??

That clause has been twisted by decades of liberal congresses and allowed by a quiescent government school indoctrinated public just like they've twisted and we have also allowed, for example, the welfare, interstate commerce and other clauses to sweep into federal control just about every human activity in this formerly free nation.

Several really smart freedom lovers saw this coming 2 centuries ago! "...the natural tendency of things is for government to gain Ground and for liberty to yield...let no more be heard of Confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution." Thomas Jefferson

"(centralized government) will destroy the state government, and swallow the liberties of the people." Patrick Henry

May I be so bold as to suggest that millions do something that would scare the hell out of these ignorant, power-grabbing politicians and petty bureaucrats? That would be to READ and UNDERSTAND the approximately 4,400 words in OUR national charter, the Constitution? It's available FOR FREE ON-LINE EVERYWHERE!

You'd need to explain it to them as most of them NEVER HAVE!!

Oh yeah -- one more thing: While I still support Trump because he's probably the only guy with the cajones to muck that fetid stable on the Potomac, he REALLY NEEDS TO BETTER EXPLAIN HIS SEEMINGLY UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT FOR "EMINENT DOMAIN" which is more and more being applied in an UNJUSTIFIABLE MANNER to enrich connected developers and entities.

[FrankR]

He is just trying to curtail domestic production so his Middle East cronies can have their monopolies back and boost the prices to $8 a gallon.

Obama is Saran Wrap...clings to his Marxist ideas but you can see right through him.

[Sacajaweau]

Exactly.........

[BenLurkin]

Yup. The time has come.

[Paladin2]

Looks like that map includes Indian Reservations.

[Romans Nine]

To who? Foreign countries?

The land should be repossed by the states.

It is a shame how little understanding there is of the real problems we have.

We need heart surgery but even those who think they are conservatives want us to take antacids and aspirin.

Fix the real problem not the symptoms.

Fedzilla has no business owning any land.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Someone is still drilling on Federal land?

[theBuckwheat]

When a company’s debts exceeds its assets, the creditors can petition a competent court to declare it bankrupt. The assets are then auctioned off to at least partially relieve the creditors.

The US government has to choose: keep the national debt or keep the federal lands. Any lands that cannot be substantially justified must be auctioned in an orderly manner.

But this is exactly why we must impose a hard limit on spending and a hard limit on debt. If we don’t, even if we are able to liquidate federal lands for several trillion dollars and pay down the federal debt, nothing stops some future Congress from running up the debt once again.

This is exactly why the first order of business at the Article V Convention must be to limit government spending.

[Mr. K]

I hope President Trump immediately orders ANWAR to be open for oil AND MINERAL exploration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[W.]

0bama, the drunken two-year old, has to grab hold of and screw up everything he sees.

[BwanaNdege]

All other land is deemed owned by the state or the private sector .

References, please.

[Jim W N]

The Constitution, the ONLY source of federal power, does not authorize the feds to hold state lands for National Forests and National Parks. It is Teddy Roosevelt’s “feel-good” unconstitutional land grab, AKA “feel good” tyranny which soon or later turns ugly, as now.

If the people of a state want to preserve parks and forests in their state they as they have may set up State Forests and State Parks.

Meanwhile, the states need to repossess their rightful ownership of their lands and kick the feds out.