Mineral rights and property rights: Point/counterpoint
Readers are asking, why did Virginia legislators pass a law expanding the authority of mining companies to use vacant coal shafts for storage of waste and other activities in support of active mining sites nearby?
William McLaughlin threw down the gauntlet:
The only reason that the right wing republicans passed this legislation is the financial influence of the coal industry and the industries efforts to rape, pillage, and pollute the world for their greedy benefit. Forget public health, forget clean water, forget that the communities where these open mines exist.
May 8, 2012 - 7:53 AM
These people do not represent us, I am not clear on how that can still be even a question in anyone’s mind. They represent the people who fund their elections, junkets, retirement job and influence up the ladder. We are merely the means to their end and forgotten till the next election where they deliver more platitudes, pat us on the heads and tell us they are “listening”. If this privacy invading legislature who gives all to business is not enough to clue Virginians in, we are literally doomed to be run like a kingdom, because that is what we have become.
Public health, clean water, and communities do not fund elections, re-elections, or posh trips. They do not offer insider information, invites to all the big events, powerful connections and a cushy retirement position on a paid board. There is no competition.
Earthquakes, water that is flammable and undrinkable and communities ruined are in our future. Not tomorrow, no they are too smart for that. But it will come.