Big Coal Stealing Even More of Your Money

It's really easier to just remember that all fossil fuel companies are evil motherfuckers, all corporations are blatant thieves, and all the rich are parasites.

 

Think Progress:

A seemingly low-profile proposal from a little-known natural resources agency in the Department of the Interior (DOI) has attracted a record-breaking 210,000 public comments from taxpayers, who argue that they are not receiving a fair share of revenues from the mining of coal on U.S. public lands.

The public outcry came in response to a proposed rule from DOI’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue that aims to close a regulatory loophole that allows coal companies to avoid paying royalties owed to taxpayers. Critics argue that the proposed rule does not go far enough to guarantee that western states and U.S. taxpayers are receiving a fair value for the coal mined on America’s public lands, due to additional subsidies given to coal companies under the rule.

“We just got done with this Legislature where there were a lot of needs that couldn’t be met,” said Steve Charter, a rancher from north of Billings, Montana told the Billings Gazette. Meanwhile, he said, “since 2008 Montana has lost over $30 million in coal royalties that should have been revenue to the state.”

In January, a report from the Center for American Progress uncovered evidence that coal companies are dodging royalty payments owed to taxpayers by selling coal to their own subsidiary companies and then paying royalties on artificially low prices.

Reviews of the Department of the Interior’s coal program have also found that coal companies are taking advantage of up to $1 billion a year in royalty rate reductions and subsidies for washing and transporting coal.

 

Privatizing Public Space

Of all capitalism's horrific crimes against humanity, the worst may be destroying the very idea of public space that no individual or corporation can deny to other people.

David Atkins at Political Animal:

On one hand this seems like a cross-section of American entrepreneurialism combined with high-tech democratization similar to using Uber or Lyft for transportation, or buying a hot restaurant reservation via smartphone app.  

But on the other hand it’s a very personal and physical representation of a disturbing trend toward the privatization of public space. There’s something fundamental about using a public space for free or low cost as long as you need it, then ceding it to the first comer for their own use. That’s the principle of the commons. What happens when you allow people to start becoming mini-grifters, overstaying in public spaces in order to make a quick buck off the next person who can afford to pay their price for public space at the expense of those who cannot?

What happens when those people then hire other people to sit in public spaces and sell them? That’s almost a textbook case of tragedy of the commons combined with rent-seeking abuse by unscrupulous hucksters.

As of now San Francisco is stopping the practice, which is sure to cause howls of protest from libertarian types. But what other choice is there? And isn’t this the perfect encapsulation of why regulation is needed if the public spaces, parking and otherwise, are going to survive?

Let's All Check the Definition of "Public Park" Again

Because Lexington, Kentucky, seems to think the definition is "tax-payer funded space that rich people decide who gets to enjoy."

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

In coming months, people who deal drugs, harass people or commit other serious crimes in Lexington's 105 city parks could be banned from the properties.

The Urban County Council voted 14-0 Thursday to approve a new parks department policy.

The council was the latest body to sign off on the policy, developed by a task force appointed in response to multiple citizens' concerns about safety in the city's green spaces. 

 General Services commissioner Geoff Reed said the banning policy was a effort to help police maintain safety in parks. Under the policy, someone who is banned from a park and then returns may be arrested for trespassing. Currently, if someone commits a particularly dangerous crime in a park — such as assault or selling drugs — there is no way for the city to keep the person out, Reed said.

Really? The police cannot arrest somebody for assault or selling drugs? Oh, wait, he means the police cannot arrest somebody who may have committed a crime in the past but who is not committing a crime in the present.

In a free, Democratic society, there is no such crime as "trespassing" on public property. Public property is, you know, public.

If people are committing actual crimes in that public space, then it is the job of the police to obtain probable cause - you know, like evidence - and then arrest the people committing crimes. It is manifestly not the job of the police to arrest people they or the powers that be don't care to share park space with.

Austerity Kills, Part the Infinite

From Firedoglake:

- Federal officials warn the government it may not have the necessary funds to battle wildfires this summer.

I say we make a list of the austerity hysterics and libertarians and climate deniers and their home addresses so that firefighters can be sure to avoid contaminating their property with Big Gubmint when the drought-fed blazes arrive.

Supremes: Fuck you, hippies, and the bikes you rode in on

This isn't about property rights; it's about smacking down hippies and their "sustainability" descendants.

And Stephen Breyer is a moron.

From Salon:

The Supreme Court Monday ruled 8-1 in favor of a private landowner in Wyoming who was fighting to keep bike paths from being built near his house. The decision, according to USA Today, threatens thousands of miles of public bicycle trails.

The case wasn’t about bike paths per se — it was about whether or not the federal government retains its control over land that had been granted to railroad companies once it’s been abandoned.  But the decision undermines a federal “rails to trails” program, threatening the more than 1,400 bike and nature trails it’s created since its inception in 1983.

SNIP

“I certainly think bicycle paths are a good idea, ” Justice Stephen Breyer said during oral arguments in January. The problem, he continued, is that the U.S. government doesn’t have a central database of the land it could convert to bike paths: “For all I know, there is some right-of-way that goes through people’s houses, you know, and all of a sudden they are going to be living in their house and suddenly a bicycle will run through it.”

“The court undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now enjoys as means of transportation and recreation,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the lone dissenter. ”Lawsuits challenging the conversion of former rails to recreational trails alone,” she added, “may well cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”

I'm not surprised that Corporatist Elena Kagan went along with Breyer's bullshit, but I am disappointed in Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  Between this and her insistence that Roe v Wade was 'premature," I'm rapidly moving into the "Resign, Ruth, Resign" camp.

Don't Cross Any Bridges in Pennsylvania

Firedoglake:

- Pennsylvania finally decided to fix its bridges. It’s decision, however, was to just privatize the bridges and let the market update them. Not good.

First, the corporate motherfuckers who now own the bridges will build toll booths and charge you to cross the bridges your tax dollars are already paying for.

Then, they won't do any maintenance or repair at all.  They'll just wait until the things collapse then skip town with their taxpayer booty. Never mind the dead bodies.

And don't forget the bribes - also from your tax dollars - paid to the legislators and bureaucrats who sold public property to private greedheads.