• US federal judges quote The Lorax to block gas pipeline construction
    13 replies, posted
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/16/us/dr-seuss-lorax-pipeline-forest-service-ruling-trnd/index.html (CNN )Forget about the Truffula trees. The Lorax is now saving real-life forests. A panel of federal judges in Virginia cited the beloved Dr. Seuss character to block the construction of an underground gas pipeline that would cross two national forests and a portion of the Appalachian Trail. "We trust the United States Forest Service to 'speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,'" the panel's ruling states, citing Seuss' orange environmental ambassador. The decision, issued last week by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, says the US Forest Service failed to preserve national forest resources when it authorized the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The underground natural gas pipeline is being built by Dominion Energy, a Virginia power company, and would stretch 604.5 miles across West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. The Forest Service initially had concerns because the developers would build through a total of 21 miles of Virginia's George Washington and Monongahela National Forests and a right of way across the Appalachian Trail but the agency ended up approving the permit. In its ruling, the court says the decision was "particularly informed by the Forest Service's serious environmental concerns that were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company's deadlines." The Southern Environmental Law Center, one of the groups that filed an appeal to stop the construction in the forests, said the Forest Service "failed to take a hard look at environmental impacts of the project."
I'm really getting tired of these companies seemingly targeting federal lands to build their stuff through. "Oh this has been federally protected for 100 years and is a cultural icon? well I want to put a pipeline through it so gib me permit!" there's no off limits lands right now, everything can and seemingly will be put up for sale eventually.
The other option is taking land from private owners via Eminent Domain, which is how you get shot. Seriously though, glad this was stopped.
Don´t listen to the Lorax, he is a sell-out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKKA3M-2sJc
ya eminent domain costs money because they have to buy out the land and people actually care about it suddenly. fucking NIMBY
There's a lyric I really like that talks about that; "Once you let greed inside you push virtue aside. Cause everything has a price and there is nothing they can't buy." It honestly does sicken me how much companies try to get away with because they know they can buy there way out of it
Us is highly deregulated for big corp so they can do what they want. The government is for sale.
Everyone's a NIMBY to some degree, it's human nature.
To be fair, you’d probably be absolutely pissed too if a third party bribed lobbied the government into kicking you out of your house for bare minimum compensation over a project which may not even be considered vital to infrastructure. That’s not even taking into account the horrible housing market and expenses for storing all your things while looking for a new place to live, assuming you can even find anything similar to what you had at a price which isn’t stupid. Eminent domain really should only be used as a last resort and only for government contracts involving the installation of vital infrastructure for the country. NOT by big businesses looking for another way to fuck people over to increase their revenue.
the necessity of infrastructure is something also severely lacking in today's analysis. The keystone XL extension which is just a very small leg jutting off of the existing pipeline something totally lost on conservatives and pretty much anyone who only watches TV for news, is pretty much not needed. the oil fields it would service are pretty much exclusively owned by the kochs and produces the nastiest dirtiest oil, and the keystone pipeline's bottlenecks were in the US south, far downstream of the fields, not up in north dakota.
I thought this was going to be about some mad filibuster where they just quoted the entire script of the Lorax to try and block the pipleline from being built.
I just don't get why they don't build refineries closer to the source, it makes loads more sense than building a pipe-line that can (and will) leak into rivers and aquifers and, at best, provide a piddly handful of permanent jobs.
See that's the thing, corporations are always hurting for money, because honestly how much money is too much? Now I'm not anti-capitalism or anything but I very much agree with the opinion that something which continues to grows uncontrollably is akin to cancer.
Capitalism requires that no amount of money is too much. If you're not constantly making as much money as possible, and constantly increasing how much you make, you're failing. It's eternal growth or death
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.