Arizona House votes to demand return of federally owned lands
Source: Reuters
By David Schwartz
PHOENIX | Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:10pm EDT
(Reuters) - Arizona lawmakers on Monday passed legislation demanding the U.S. government relinquish to the state millions of acres of federal territory, in the latest rekindling of a "sagebrush rebellion" over control of public lands in the West.
Without debate, the Republican-dominated Arizona House of Representatives easily passed a measure seeking the return of roughly 48,000 square miles of government-owned acreage in the Grand Canyon state by 2015.
The bill, approved on a 35-15 vote, now goes to the state Senate for final passage. Republican Governor Jan Brewer would then have five days once the bill reaches her desk to sign or veto it. Otherwise, the measure becomes law automatically.
Arizona would be the second state in the nation to enact such legislation. Last month, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill seeking to reclaim some 30 million acres of federally owned land in his state, shrugging off warnings from state attorneys that the measure was likely unconstitutional and would lead to a protracted yet futile legal battle.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/us-usa-arizona-lands-idUSBRE83N00R20120424
= new reply since forum marked as read
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...and more to do with privatizing water.
Within the past decade, technological advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” have enabled the oil and gas industry to extract large quantities of oil and natural gas from shale formations in the United States. However, the practice has proven controversial. Pollution from modern drilling and fracking has caused widespread environmental and public health problems and created serious, long-term risks to underground water resources.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/fracking-the-new-global-water-crisis/
--and--
There are reasons for worry about Arizona's supply of natural gas. But, for most everybody else, the picture is pretty rosy.
Accessible supplies are growing fast, thanks mostly to new technologies for getting at the relatively clean-burning fuel. As a result, the price of natural gas is sinking. Moody's Investor Services reports natural-gas prices languishing at a 10-year low.
In just a few years, expectations for the U.S. natural-gas market have gone a complete 180 degrees -- from predictions that we will be a net importer of compressed natural gas for decades to come to being a net exporter. The Marcellus shale deposits in Pennsylvania and New York alone may produce trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, according to estimates.
Much of the change has to do with the evolution of a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." The fracking process sends drills deep into the earth, horizontally as well as vertically, and splits previously impermeable shale with tiny fissures that release its deposits of natural gas.
http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/DougMacE/159218
--also--
Private Water Companies Lobby For More Fracking
April 23, 2012
By Sarah Pavlus
The country’s two largest private water utility companies are participants in a massive lobbying effort to expand controversial shale gas drilling — a heavy industrial activity that promises to enrich the water companies but may also put drinking water resources at risk.
The situation — which some watchdogs describe as a troubling conflict of interest — underscores the complex issues raised by the nationwide push to privatize infrastructure and services like water, prisons, and roads.
Shale gas drillers use a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract gas from the Marcellus formation in Pennsylvania. The controversial technique forces millions of gallons of water — mixed with sand and chemicals — into the ground to crack the shale rock and release gas. In addition to the potential risks posed by actual fracturing, the process produces large amounts of toxic wastewater that can be difficult to dispose of safely.
http://www.oilandgasonline.com/doc.mvc/private-water-companies-lobby-for-more-fracking-0001
Fracking uses large amounts of water. Hard to grab water rights when the Feds own the land. But if you can get your puppets at the state level to "seize" federally-own lands (i.e., "Sagebush Rebellion"
, and the water rights that come with them, you got it made!
IMO, as an AZ resident, we may have the most incompetent and ignorant state legislature out of all 50 states.
If they got a hold of this land, they would sell it to the highest corporate bidder before you could say "sold".
They would then waste the money on paying themselves to pass the most idiotic legislation imaginable.
In the meantime, we, the people, would no longer have access to these beautiful wild lands, and the 1% would immediately proceed to desecrate the land in the name of profit.
http://www.newser.com/story/87346/states-are-going-crazy-as-well-as-broke.html
States Are Going Crazy, as Well as Broke
Arizona and Oklahoma are leaders in both insanity and insolvency
By Caroline Miller, Newser Staff
Posted Apr 29, 2010 10:32 AM CDT
(Newser) – The Tea Partiers may be up in arms over the federal government meddling in their lives and not being able to balance its books, but Gail Collins points out that it's the states that are going into overdrive passing wacky laws (hello, Arizona, Oklahoma!) and whiffing on budget cuts (hello, New York!). "On the surface, it might seem as if we have a pattern here: red states pass crazy laws, while blue states can’t handle money," she writes in the New York Times. "But financial failure is color blind. A few months ago, Oklahoma won the Largest Revenue Shortfall in the Nation title, edging out—yes!—Arizona."
Arizona's so broke it's taken to selling off public buildings—including the capitol building—and leasing them back, she notes, adding that maybe it's the financial pressure driving them to pass an immigration law so draconian not even Jeb Bush likes it, and "a gun control law so unconstitutional it makes the National Rifle Association nervous".
Arizona is a beautiful and diverse land, and these federal lands are used for recreation by people from all over world. It would be a huge state, national, and planetary tragedy to let these conservative fools in the AZ legislature have power over the federal lands.
Imagine what the 1% would do to the Grand Canyon. One huge open pit mine.
