DM, I agree with you but...once we started “dividing the vertical column” and wrangling about:
1. who has surface rights
2. who has above-surface rights (air-space*)
3. who has subsurface rights from 0-100 feet (shallow aquifer)
4. who has mid-deep surface rights (aquifers and possible minerals to 1000 feet)
5. who has extraction rights past 1000 feet
We (property owner) gave up sovereignty to our “elected-over-lords by involving them and asking them to help decide.
Outside of another revolutionary Independence effort, we won’t get any of that back...ever.
* Did you know that the air-space above your property is controlled at all times by the current political regime? You have no voice if the “party-of-now” decides to allow ChiCom bombers to fly over your homestead. If they make a mistake during those times, oh, well. This is NOT what the Patriot Founders envisioned for Etats-Unis.
I am now returning to “Stealth Curmudgeon” mode...
IHS Global Insight reports that in 2010, independents operating onshore alone generated $38.4 billion in corporate taxes, severance taxes, and federal royalty payments.
The Tax Foundation finds that governments have collected $1.95 trillion in taxes from the oil and natural gas industry since 1981. The total amount of taxes collected is roughly 40% more than the industry’s combined profits. Tax collections exceeded company profits in 23 of the 27 years surveyed.
On top of direct industry taxes , consumers paid $1.1 trillion in excise and sales taxes on petroleum products from 1981 to 2008.
http://www.westernenergyalliance.org/knowledge-center/tax-royalty-revenue