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A fire sale of state’s assets; Stephen F. “The Onion” Kislock, III; Beaver County Times; August 24, 2011.
Most of Mr. Kislock’s 63+ letters over the last seven years have been Republican-bashing exercises, though he sometimes goes after Democrats for his pet causes. Sometime during 2009 Mr. Kislock became an in-house commentator for Beaver County Reds. Please follow this link to learn more about Beaver County Reds. You may also remember Mr. Kislock appears to believe “The Onion” is a real news source.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“A new army of carpetbaggers is coming into Pennsylvania with tons of money and no regulations to control what happens to our land and water.”
[RWC] Untrue, and it’s hard to believe Mr. Kislock doesn’t know it’s untrue.
Previous letters from Mr. Kislock on this topic are here and here. I’m sure it’s only a coincidence Mr. Kislock started writing about this topic only after we elected a Republican for governor. As far as I can tell, Mr. Kislock made not a peep on this topic when Democrat Ed Rendell was governor.
“Taking natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, shipping it to China and leaving behind, what?”
[RWC] Jobs, money in the pockets of property owners and taxpayers, et cetera. Why isn’t Mr. Kislock complaining about coal? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. exported 61 million tons of coal (I don’t know how much was PA coal.) to at least 43 countries in 2010, a 47% increase over 2009. This included about four million tons to Red China.
“The plans of our new chief executive officer, Gov. Tom Corp-bett of the Corporate-wealth of Pennsylvania, to privatize the resources of the Corporate-wealth are under way. Unlike other Republican governors across the country, Corp-bett is taking a low-key approach.
“New regulations dismantling any protection for the people’s natural resources has been under way. Yes, the natural resources belong to the people of Pennsylvania.”
[RWC] Mr. Kislock didn’t provide any examples of “[n]ew regulations dismantling any protection for the people’s natural resources.” I’m not a lawyer, but it appears Pennsylvania law is “[T]he natural resources” belong to the property owner or the person who owns the mineral rights for the property.
“Your vote for Tom Corp-bett and the Republican agenda has started a fire sale of the commonwealth’s assets.”
[RWC] Mr. Kislock realizes the Marcellus boom began long before Mr. Corbett took office in January 2011, doesn’t he? Several years ago on I-80 on my way to Tionesta I passed a convoy of trucks transporting gas-exploration/drilling/production equipment.
“State forests, state parks, etc., will be for sale to the lowest bidder. Right, CEO Tom Corp-bett?”
[RWC] I’m guessing Mr. Kislock is referring to the possibility of turning over the operation of state parks (among other state services) to private-sector businesses. Pennsylvania would continue to own the parks.
The above notwithstanding, this letter is really about the religion of manmade global warming. Knowing the manmade global warming myth is increasingly falling on deaf ears, followers of this faith are trying to use safety, water quality, etc. as backdoors to stop drilling and production of Marcellus natural gas. You can find other examples here and here. As this letter, a Beaver County Reds member (secretary) wrote the second example. Here’s a new twist. After yesterday’s (8/23/11) earthquake, I jokingly told a friend we should expect lefties to blame global warming. I was wrong about the global warming bit (so far), but I had the right idea. Lefties are trying to blame Marcellus-gas drilling for the earthquake.
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