If this poll is any indication, Americans, by a solid majority, want to save their social entitlement programs and cut defense spending in the battle over the federal budget.
The Congressional Connection Poll surveyed 1,000 adults Feb. 9-12.
"Texas politicians talk tough on eminent domain, but with Keystone we have a private pipeline company acting as a ‘common carrier' and bludgeoning private property owners with eminent domain while many of our Republican leaders cheer from the sidelines . . ."
Despite a presidential permit denied to TransCanada for the Keystone XL project just weeks ago, the company continues to bully and pressure landowners along the Texas pipeline route.
The controversial Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands crude more than 1900 miles through six states including Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. In Texas, the pipeline crosses eighteen counties, from Paris to Pt. Arthur. Groups with landowners near the cities of Paris, Winnsboro, and Wells joined in press events held in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston to ask for support from agencies and officials on the continuing plight of landowners who would be impacted by the pipeline.
"Texas, we have an eminent domain problem," said Terri Hall, director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF). "There is absolutely zero oversight for pipeline companies that want to take private property from Texans - all you have to do is check the right box on a form and declare yourself a common carrier, no questions asked."
9 comments:
Pissed off US citizens can contact TransCanada Corporation at 1-800-661-3805 and let these fossil fuel bullies know how you feel about their abusive use of eminent domain.
You can also email the company at transcanada@computershare.com and give them a piece of your mind as well.
How ridiculous to complain to a company that has offered jobs and freedom from the high cost of Middle East oil!
Pipelines crisscross the country already. One more significant job producing, gas-price slashing pipeline would hardly be noticed in the US ecology.
By the way, who is the author now? I hope it is Bob Ochoa. He is more sensible and reasoned than ole Rocky.
The poll unfairly compares opinions on Social Security and Medicare, which are paid for by the recipients and unjustly equates them with Food Stamps and Medicare, which are welfare handouts to people who have not necessarily paid into the system and who are probably degenerated by the welfare system.
Tar sands USE more energy than they produce. Like ethanol, only much dirtier to mine and process.
Tar sands are already an environmental disaster in Canada on an unprecedented scale.
This isn't energy production, this is suicide.
To Anonymous 7:44 PM:
You state that TransCanada offers "jobs and freedom from the high cost of Middle East oil!" It has done/will do neither. There will be some new jobs for the time that it takes the pipeline to be built, but none are long-lasting. TransCanada will use the Texas refineries and workers which are already there on the Texas Gulf Coast. No NEW jobs.
As for freedom from the high cost of Middle East oil, that won't happen either. The tar sands oil will be exported directly from the Texas coast to foreign countries. That's why TransCanada is seeking a port-city location. They wanted to build a pipeline to their own (Canada's) west coast, but citizens there wouldn't allow it.
And the Keystone XL IS different from other pipelines in that it would cross over the largest aquifer in North America -- the Ogallala. A pipeline leak there would be disastrous.
Anonymous, 7:46 AM,
You describe food stamps and Medicare [but you meant Medicaid] as "welfare handouts to people who have not necessarily paid into the system and who are probably degenerated by the welfare system."
How is a blind elderly person or a
young child who has drug-addicted parents "degenerated" by receiving aid which s/he desperately needs? If you should unexpectedly be paralyzed in an auto accident tomorrow, and your family couldn't provide the 24-hour help you needed to live, I'll bet you would sink into "degeneracy" and accept aid from federal, state, and/or local outfits in a New York minute.
It's always easy to scorn "degenerates" when you are hale and hearty.
Have some compassion!
Big Sky Ranch subdivision is owned by the Myers family (Myers Concrete) and is their second development (first is South River, Section 2).
There are 23 homesites (lots) in Big Sky. The subdivision is located on the left side of Mt. Sharp Road, 3.1 miles north of the Jacob's Well Road/Mt. Sharp Road 3-way stop.
They trumpet "Open Ag Valuation for Lower Taxes!!!"
See www.bigskyranchtexas.com
"Landowner fights pipeline company" is article (p.B1) in today's Austin paper. Tells how NE Texas landowner is taking TransCanada to court for illegally using eminent domain to take some of her land for the Keystone XL pipeline to the Texas Coast.
www.statesman.com
@ Subdivision Alert,
Exactly what is the point of your post? That Subdivision has been there for at least two years maybe three and it consists of 20 or so large lots that have cattle grazing on them therefore the AG exemption. All of it was platted legally and the AG exemption is legal. So, what is the alert for? You have not discovered anything new. What IS your problem?
arlee
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