The Circus is back in town.  Or maybe it never left.  The names remain the same, the form of the cause evolves slightly, but the theme persists.  Shut down growth.  Keep the country in the county.  Save us.

Locally it started with the Preble’s Meadow Jumping Mouse, a creature near and dear to our hearts that was uniquely threatened by evil developer bulldozers.  We awoke to find one day that this rodent species owns a whole basket of usurped property rights.  Based on this novel discovery, hundreds of green and left warriors combined with sympathetic government regulators to form the Circus and bring into existence, by mere presumption, thousands of pages of growth-stopping regulations.  They empowered the federal Environmental Protection Agency and all subordinate levels of government to save that mouse, and by their curious chain of cause and effect, us too.  The economic clout now wielded on behalf of that mouse makes it one of the most powerful rodents in the history of the universe, probably second only to Mickey.  And we were not saved.

The Circus rested for a bit and recharged its batteries.  Then along came an evil developer intent on bringing commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision for a super highway complete with utility corridors and railroad tracks.  Imagine the environmental impacts–pretty much the worst things possible–the smog all that transportation would cause, the ancient trees to be felled, the noise, the light.  Don’t go toward the light!  Imagine the poor mice that would have to be relocated and provided similar habitat—if it could even be found—outside of the right of way.  The damages would surely be irreparable.  The Circus shifted into high gear and put the pedal to the metal.  They rented busses to carry occupants to the State capitol.  They saturated planning and commissioner meetings.  They filled the internet with a relentless onslaught of do or die hyperbolic predictions about the end of the world that this road would precipitate.  The end of the world was serious stuff.  No one wanted that.  The laws were passed, the court cases came in.  The Circus rested.  And still we were not saved.

One day an evil developer came along, intent on bringing water commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision for long distance water transportation to quench the thirst of citizens in a sub-development in Colorado Springs.  The Circus double clutched their well-oiled machine and slipped it into gear.  Hundreds of loud clamorers filled auditoriums,  government meetings and state house offices with a new flag of presumed entitlement, “our water.”  The fact that not a drop of it actually belonged to them gave them no pause.  “Our water” was not actually “their water” but the mob has never been one to quibble about details like legal property rights.  They were all about momentum, sound bites and the persuasion of pure force.  Demonstrators and occupyers don’t wait for the subtleties of legal technicalities, unless of course a legal technicality can be found to put wind into their sails, that’s another matter.  The evil developer was persuaded to recede into the tapestry of the world, and the Circus rested once again.  And still we were not saved.

Then along came the evil energy developers, intent on bringing commerce to the eastern plains of Colorado with a broad vision of energy independence from the beneficial use of dormant oil and gas supplies lying ten thousand feet down in the ground.  The Circus kicked their machine into overdrive.  To save us once again, the green and left warriors sallied forth and wrote hundreds of pages of zoning laws incorporating every growth stopping agency and device ever conceived by statist man.  They employed lawyers to tune their language so those laws could only be challenged—never repealed—by endless years of impossibly expensive litigation.

The Roman government gave bread and circuses to the people to distract them from the messy details of their oppressive governors.  Today’s Circus combines the clamoring class of green and leftist warriors with a sympathetic regulatory class of unelected bureaucrats, to form the government itself.  Gone are those halcyon times when the mob could be placated by mere food and entertainment.  Perhaps conditioned by reality TV, the mob now insists on being part of the action.  They want a hand in actually creating the government fascism that will turn around and oppress them.  So long as they can applaud a victory, it matters not that the beast they create intends to dine on them.

For all their efforts put in to save our quality of life, our environment, and our property values, you’d think real estate around here would be getting more expensive.

The Jews have their Talmud, the Muslims their Hadiths, exhaustive rules of religious law and taboo to define every nuance of permissible human action.  Secular Americans have City, County, State and Federal regulations in a great fascist web waiting to entrap citizens, pending the whim of an invisible unelected bureaucratic shaman somewhere who may notice a non-compliant act, and who then brings down the wrath of government upon the citizen, er, applicant.

The applause is always deafening.

“Why bother with an environmental impact assessment if the decision was always going to be made for political reasons?” WSJ, 1/19/2012, pg. A14.

Excellent question, and it points squarely to the agenda motivating Elbert County greens in pushing through impossibly complex local oil and gas zoning. This zoning putsch masquerades under saving property values, sparing the environment, and smart growth, but those are just platitudes for the rubes.

This zoning would create a matrix of imponderable and unchallengeable laws administered by a czar, who would conduct numerous public planning circuses for green activists to attend and applaud, for the sole purpose of displaying oil and gas development blasphemers for the greens to ridicule.

The political decision has already been made by these people. Please, save us all a lot of time and money. We’re not stupid. We don’t need your sacrificial rituals to the green gods. Just ban it for the taboo that you’ve already decided it is.

And I want to see the Community and Development Services director wear a witch doctor’s headdress at future BOCC meetings, you know, something befitting a smartly dressed shaman.

“Every year regulatory compliance costs U.S. businesses $1.75 Trillion. That would be enough to hire 43 Million workers.”

See this short youtube video at Episode Two: Economic Freedom in America Today.

Regulation is not only a Federal problem.  Regulation is pernicious, at every level of government.  Today Elbert County has a clear choice whether or not to greatly expand our county’s regulatory reach into energy development matters it knows next to nothing about.

At the county level the force of regulation is imposed through zoning law.  Our county’s Community and Development Services department works every day to write, refine, expand, detail and enforce their ubiquitous vision of a perfectable society.  They want to save this land and this county from its people because, essentially, they don’t trust the people.

They think they are wise stewards who, with a third-party steward’s interest, have a more valuable right to forecefully impose their vision about a sound local economy, than the stakeholders and property holders in the county have in doing so for themselves.

Zoning regulators think that by stopping people from the pursuit of economic activity, they serve a higher purpose of preservation of our local world.  This of course begs questions of preservation for what?  For who?  For when?  And for why?

Of course they have answers for all of these questions.  The answers are myths — myths consisting of more tenuous myths in a great pyramid of “smart,” sustainable, no-growth, enviro-jihad mythology.

The future beneficiaries of county zoning and regulation don’t exist.  They are a myth–not real–and unless you’re a believer, not even foreseeable.  The great probability is they will never come to exist because future unforseen circumstances will change everything long before these present day socio and eco myths can ever be tested, long after they are forgotten in favor of some future mythology as yet unkown.

Man took matters that used to be in God’s domain and invested them in Gaia, the environment and universe-trekking aliens. That’s what humans do at the margins of their knowledge where observation ends and speculation begins–we create mythologies–myths that we love.   And then we create the legalities to enforce those mythologies.

Regulatory zealots consider this sort of talk heresy.  They believe that the forced perfectibility of man and the environment is actually possible.  Just as the power that was - the Church - once defended Ptolemy’s geocentric universe against the heresy of Copernicus, so too the regulatory powers of today know, without a shadow of doubt, that they know best, and that they can sufficiently describe, legislate, and enforce a set of rules to govern our behavior, for our own best interest.

To even imagine they could succeed at such a task is a pinnacle of hubris.  When has an authoritarian process ever led to a best outcome for its subjects?  When have a small minority of minds ever created the economic output of a diverse population acting in their own interests?  The regulatory model cannot succeed.

Regulation makes inevitable change much more costly.  The regulatory parties in government who do this to us have no personal skin in the game–only myths and the iron fist–a deadly combination.  Ironically, the regulatory mission of governing progressives is about the most regressive thing they could do.

If we can’t stop creating mythologies, at least we should learn to stop legalizing them.

~

From the ACLU 50-State Survey for January of 2012:

• Access to abortion and birth control. [Must keep killing babies.]
• Equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered. [Must treat those who display sexual preference the same as those who do not.]
• Protection against racial profiling and discrimination by law enforcement. [Must not profile those most likely to commit terrorism.]
• Equal access for eligible residents to vote. [As opposed to citizens.]
• Non-preferential treatment of any one religion by the government. [Except Islam.]
• Preventing the teaching of creationism and intelligent design from interfering with the teaching of evolution in public school science classes. [When government sanctions a theory it must be protected.  See global warming.]

Let’s see: infant death and dismemberment, sexual obsession, terrorism, illegal aliens, Sharia, spurious government science.  That’s an impressive series of harmful policies to rack up by one organization in one fund-raising mailer.  How did I get on this nutjob mailing list?  Yeah I’m going to send them a check, where’s my pen?

Thank you American law schools.

Problems with the 07-2011 Draft Oil & Gas Regs proposed for Elbert County Zoning

Page 5:  “…unless approval has been granted pursuant to these regulations from the Director of Community & Development Services (C&DS) or the Board of County Commissioners (Board).”
Are we setting up an unelected czar of oil and gas zoning enforcement, unaccountable to the voters?

Page 6:  “the County Attorney or where the Board deems it appropriate, the District Attorney……may [act]”
Here again, should enforcement of zoning be allowed without the approval of an elected official?

Page 21:  “Safety practices in accordance with state and federal law, including the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970….”
Elbert County should not be in the business of enforcing federal OSHA law.

Page 23:  “The oil and gas facility shall not cause significant degradation of wildlife, including any federal, state or Colorado Natural Heritage Program-identified species of concern, or to their habitat.  At a minimum, the operation shall comply with the CDOW’s recommended…..”
The CDOW, Colorado and the federal government can enforce their own wildlife regulations.  Elbert County does not need to duplicate those efforts.

Page 23:  “When planning facilities, the Applicant shall consult and reference the current wildlife concurrence data, including the CDOW’s Natural Diversity Information Source database…”
Bio-diversity is buzzword science with no greater purpose than stopping development.  It has no place in industry zoning regulations.

Page 25:  “install wildlife crossovers and escape ramps where the trench crosses well-defined game trails”
Presumably this would be for the really smart or well trained wild game, who know how to use such devices.

Page 26:  “The applicant shall identify the proposed source of fresh or potable water required for the oil and gas facility and dust control, along with a letter from the Colorado Division of Water Resources or a copy of the Water Court decree indicating that the water supply source is acceptable for the use at the oil and gas facility.”
Here again, water regulation falls outside of Elbert County’s jurisdiction.  It’s a matter for the State Engineer.

Page 37:  “the right of the county to determine land uses”
Isn’t it the people’s right to determine land use within allowed limits?  I thought government in America was based on limitations, not rights.

Page 39:  “No oil and gas facilities shall cause a reduction in solar radiation…”
Isn’t it a reach to blame the existence or absence of solar radiation on an oil well?

Page 39:  “Greenhouse Gas Reduction”
Zoning regulations should not incorporate the spurious science of global warming language.

Page 40:  “The county finds that the standard industry practice of injecting highly toxic substances under high pressure into the earth for the purpose of fracturing geologic formations poses an unacceptable risk of polluting these invaluable ground water resources.”
This statement ascribes a harmful intent to the oil and gas industry as a “standard practice.”  The statement is prejudicial, unfounded, and not conducive to sound science or good industry relations.

If the Community and Development Services department needs a toxic blend to regulate, look to the toxic combination of subjects below under which this post is filed.

“DECEMBER 14, 2011

Congress mandated purchase of 250 million gallons in 2011. Actual production: 6.6 million.

‘We’ll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.”
—George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union address (more…)

From Taxpayers for Common Sense

Volume XV No. 28: July 16, 2010

Like a sailor on a late night bender, corn ethanol boosters are belly up to the bar trying to cajole another drink from the subsidy tap before the lights come on. Some in Congress seem all too ready to give in, costing taxpayers billions in the process. But in light of the yawning budget deficit and the failed promise, ethanol should be forced to make its own way in the marketplace.

Like alchemy of old, the idea of turning corn into fuel is an attractive one - a renewable, domestic, more efficient fuel. So for years Congress has lavished a tax credit, import tariff on foreign ethanol, usage mandate, and other subsidies in an effort to give the industry a leg up. But these efforts have yielded as much success as the alchemist had turning lead into gold. And according to a new Congressional Budget Office report, corn ethanol costs taxpayers $1.78 to reduce gasoline consumption by one gallon.

To promote the use of ethanol, we give fuel blenders (generally the big oil companies) a 45 cents per gallon tax credit. That costs more than $5 billion per year. But the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) expires at the end of the year, and the industry is scrambling to keep the subsidies flowing.

The Renewable Fuels Association and their allies are trying to get something – anything – in place. The tax writers in the House are considering a proposal to extend the tax credit for another year, but at a lower rate – 36 cents per gallon. That would still cost $3.8 billion. And under budget rules, Congress would have to find offsetting spending cuts or revenue increases to pay for the extension.

Just this week another ethanol enabler, Growth Energy, rolled out a plan to end the subsidies. Well, not really. Sure, they called for phasing out the tax credit – so far so good – but then replace it with infrastructure subsidies so that ethanol could compete in a “fair and open market.” Apparently the irony was lost on them. Instead of tax credits, Growth Energy wants money to pay for pumps at gas stations and pipeline infrastructure. Oh, and a mandate that all vehicles sold in the U.S. be flex-fuel.

Let’s not forget, VEETC isn’t the only subsidy the ethanol industry is bingeing on. There is a renewable fuels mandate to use biofuels, predominantly corn ethanol. The Government Accountability Office has pointed out that this mandate, which will go up to 15 billion gallons by 2015, is the primary driver of ethanol production. So why should we just give billions in tax credits to oil companies to use something they were going to use anyway?

After more than 30 years of subsidies, it’s well past time for the ethanol industry to grow up and stand on its own. In light of our current fiscal situation, we cannot afford to keep picking up the tab. So rather than handing the subsidy-addicted ethanol industry another last swig, Congress should show them the door and let the credit expire at the end of the year. Then taxpayers will have something to toast.

(more…)

From the Competitive Enterprise Institute

Cap and Trade FOIA release

From the Wall Street Journal

Obama’s Nontax Tax

The Perspective Of A Russian Immigrant
By SVETLANA KUNIN | Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:20 PM PT

In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble. In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair; about ugly capitalism, where people are exploited and treat each other like wolves in the wilderness. Life in the USSR modeled the socialist ideal. God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures.

The government-assigned salary of the proletariat (blue-collar worker) was 30%-50% higher then any professional. Without incentive to improve their life, professionals drank themselves to oblivion. They — engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers — earned a government-determined salary that barely covered the necessities, mainly food. Raising children was a hardship. It took four to six adults (parents and grandparents) to support a child. The usual size of the postwar family was one or two children. Every woman had the right to have an abortion and most of them did, often without anesthesia.

There is a comparative historical reality that plays out the consequences of two competing ideologies: life in the USSR and in America.**  (more…)

The psychological state of the militant is distinguished by his fanatical investment in the system.  This central vision reorganizes his entire intellectual and perceptual field, all the way to the periphery.  Language is transformed: it is no longer used to communicate or express, but to conceal a contrived continuity between the system and reality.  Ideological language is charged with the magical role of forcing reality to conform to a particular vision of the world.  It is a liturgical language for which every utterance points to its speaker’s adherence to the system, and it summons the interlocutor to adhere as well.  Code words thus constitute threats and figures of power.It is not possible to remain intelligent under the spell of ideology.

The most obvious sign that ideological insanity is artificial is that it is reversible: when the pressure ceases and circumstances change, one gets out all at once, as if from a dream.  But it is a waking dream–one that does not block motility and maintains a certain apparently rational coherence.  Outside the affected area, which is the superior part of the mind in a healthy person–the part that articulates religion, philosophy, and the “governing ideas of reason,” as Kant would say–the comprehensive functions seem intact but focused on and enslaved by the surreal object.  When one wakes, one’s mind is empty; one’s life and knowledge must be entirely relearned.

Alain Besancon, A Century of Horrors, 2007.

The Republican mistake of the 2008 election was to embrace a portion of the left’s ideological insanity to bring in moderates, which ended up ratcheting the debate to the left.  Whoever concluded that Republicans could score by giving the ball to the opposition should be fired. (more…)

“Because white guilt is a vacuum of moral authority, it makes the moral authority of whites and the legitimacy of American institutions contingent on proving a negative: that they are not racist.  The great power of white guilt comes from the fact that it functions by stigma, like racism itself.  Whites and American institutions are stigmatized as racist until they prove otherwise. . . . .[T]he larger reality is that white guilt leaves no room for moral choice; it does not depend on the goodwill or the genuine decency of people.”  Shelby Steele, White Guilt, 2006.

The moral authority that comes from an absence of moral choice is actually no moral authority.  This is a prescription for endless manipulation–by both blacks and whites–which Steele documents at length.  He also wrote, (more…)

Energy and Environmental Myths, by Drew Thornley of the Manhatten Institute