Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Legislature / Politics / Woods Governor Won't Take Stand Against Blowing the Tops Off Mountains
Posted by Jeff Woods on Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:09 AM
He says he can't stop coal companies from blowing the tops off our mountains because that would amount to an unconstitutional taking of property. We're guessing he wouldn't have the same qualms if he needed to condemn some poor sap's land to make way for a fabulous new commercial development. That would be a different story, wouldn't it?
The administration bill on this topic merely places into law various inadequate regulations that provide some environmental protections around mining sites. It doesn't do much of anything to save mountain towns from the ravages of this kind of mining. Coal companies blast up to 1,000 feet off the tops of mountains. Polluted water supplies, landslides and floods threaten communities in the valleys below.
Here's what the governor said this morning about the administration bill:
Bredesen: This is not a vast extension of what's going on right now but kind of putting into law the way we've been handling this. I think that will work in the General Assembly and provide some significant protections for the long term.
Q: So it's not a ban?
Bredesen: The problem is, look I'll be honest with you, I would ban it if I could. There are huge issues here of takings of property. People under the U.S. Constitution have rights to be compensated for these takings. I certainly don't have the money to go buy every seam of coal in the state. I think what we can do is make sure that if mining takes place that it's done with sensitivity to water quality and sensitivity to the environmental issues and to the impact on the local communities. That's what these regulations that have been put in place over the years would do and now I'd like to just codify them in law and make sure they remain in place for the long term.
Comments (3)
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It's too bad our culture does not value the lives and health of others more than personal property. If it did, the crime of mountaintop removal would not be happening.
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One of the founding principles of the legal system is that property can only be used in a way that does not harm other people or other property. For instance the US constitution provides a right to possess private property, but this does not therefore extend to the right to do whatever one pleases with one's private property.
For instance, how one can use property when it comes to wind mills is restricted, under the argument that the sound and sight produced thereof can harm residential property. Building a giant windmill in your yard in the centre of town is not covered under the "right to private property", and furthermore the government is not obliged to buy your yard at market price if it imposes restrictions on things such as windmills, chemical and explosive manufacturing, or any future technology not covered in present legislation.
In the same light the banning of mountain top removal is simply a regulation of the use of property in order to not harm other people and property, for instance the sight of a mountain can be part of the value of a property, likewise the water systems in which mountains play an important role is the basis of value for most if not all property, and so to remove these mountains is of necessary consequence ecologically and thus legally.
The governor needs but to argue that the intention of any previous agreement with respect to property concerning mountains did not include the right to remove said mountains, and the government is sovereign in regulating the activity on it's territory to protect the public interests with respect to existing and future technologies and practices.
Clearly, there is no legal precedent that in regulating an activity the government must buy all property from people that would otherwise benefit from said activity. If the government decides to do so it would be for expedient, not legal, purposes.
As the article points out, if the government suddenly made a law adversely affecting some poor sap, or removing loopholes to "file sharing", or any other activity, in favour of corporate interests, it would not feel obliged to buy everyone's computer that was bought with the understanding that those activities were legal.
... that is if the governor would in his own words "look I'll be honest with you, I would ban it if I could".
Note: regulating activity does not equate to the removal of property, and so needs not be reasonably compensated -- the corporations would still "own" the mountains. The governor concedes this point by trying to regulate to the extent that he has without offering to compensate the mining corporations. He also concedes the point that the communities and state itself adversely affected by mountain removal and environmental damage do have rights, just less rights than the energy corporations. In so doing he fails as a public officer charged with the protection of public interests, or more precisely the people failed in understanding that corporate interests do not equal public interests and further failed in electing people that understood this.
On come on Gov. Who you trying to fool?
The communities living below the mining sites are losing their health and their personal property is being devalued as well.
Blasting and poisoning people is immoral and illegal. What about our property rights? What about our rights period? Do the permits to mine include the right to terrorize people and poison people?
The line is drawn there.
