Is it really this difficult?

I have been reading the headlines about the Bundy family being acquitted of the charges stemming from their takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Reserve and see the people coming uncorked about race being the motivating factor. They yell that the Bundy family is white and the get set free while the indigenous people fighting a pipeline on their own land are tear gassed.

I know, race is the go to…call out race and everyone stops and listens. Race may get the attention, but this really isn’t about race…this is about money…big fat pipelines of slick, sweet, flowing money. The Bundy family squatting on the reserve cost near enough to zero dollars as to be insignificant to the government…the pipeline delays cost big oil a TON of money.

Big oil donated almost $90 million last year to various parties and candidates…and they spent another $130 million lobbying last year as well. This cuts across party lines as Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton were the top two recipients of these donation dollars (have to hedge your bets, right?).

To contrast, the World Wildlife Fund (not to be confused with the old WWF wrestling organization) spent $80K lobbying in 2015. Sure, eighty thousand dollars is a lot of money for most of us, until you realize that in the lobbying world, it is just a number easily lost in rounding. $80K is less than the oil lobby spends on some dinners. $80K is less than the average donation from oil to each Senator. $80K is 6 hundredths of a percent of the oil lobby spending.

Let’s do some quick math…the DAPL will move approximately 500K barrels per day of that sweet, sweet crude. At today’s price of almost $50 per barrel…every day of delay costs $25 million dollars…the standoff at Malheur cost all in all about $10 million total…or about 10 hours of delay on the DAPL.

Which one is going to get the government’s full attention? It  doesn’t matter if these are white ranchers or native lands…these protest and blockages are going to be fought hard. Chevron alone paid…err…donated over $1M to Obama’s inaugural committee. You can’t expect they donated that money with no hope of return on the investment, can you? Don’t worry, I know that they donate far more to the republicans…

Ask the citizens of Iowa who have fought, protested, been arrested (white but they get no news coverage…so race?) and lost, how the fight against big oil is progressing.

Ask yourself how a private entity, owned wholly by other private entities is able to invoke the threat of eminent domain. When you read the DAPL website, especially the part about landowners who don’t want this coming through their land, it says that if they can’t come to an agreement, they will go to court and the landowner may be liable for costs. How does a private company get the government to sign off on this?

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad says he would “not be upset if farmland he owned was turned over for eminent domain to build the Bakken (DAPL) oil pipeline”.

Really? Why is that? Is it because his former chief of staff is now a paid employee/lobbyist of Energy Transfer Partners or ETP (owner/operator of the DAPL)? Is it because this same governor has told the legislature to stay out of the way of the Iowa Utilities Board as they make their approvals/findings? The utilities board (which took only 5 minutes to discuss/vote to approve the pipeline ) who is populated by appointments from the very same governor… this governor who received $228K in campaign contributions from Oil/gas…$150K from unspecified energy sources (and millions more from “uncategorized” sources)…who is close with Rick Perry (ex governor of Texas who, only two weeks after exiting the office, was hired by ETP). How close you ask? Well, Perry hosted a fundraiser for Branstad in December 2013 in Houston, introducing the Iowa Governor to Texas Republican Party elite donors which led to an unspecified amount of donations.

Let’s clear that last paragraph up. The governor of Iowa appointed a board to decide the fate of a pipeline being built by a company with ties to his ex chief of staff and other ex-Iowa government officials. He then told the legislature (elected by the people) to stay out of the way of the decisions of this board (appointed by him). This governor of Iowa received large donations from oil and had a fundraiser hosted in Texas (why would Texans care about the governor of Iowa) by the ex-governor of Texas who sits on the board of the pipeline company. A pipeline company that is based in Texas (which is why Texans care about the governor of Iowa). See it now?

If you follow the money, you can understand why we are in the predicament we are…eminent domain being used by private corporations for the “betterment of the community”. Eminent domain is pretty much nonsense when the government steps in, but allowing private corporations that are stuffing government pockets to use it is a wholly different type of evil. As of the latest information I could find, less than 40% of Iowans supported the pipeline…yet the government pushes it through.

It creates jobs and taxes! Temporarily…then 12-15 permanent jobs in Iowa. Wow! That will be a huge windfall for that state.

Oh, but the people are compensated for their land. Sure…they pay them more than market price plus some amount for estimated crop loss for the next three years. Math time.

Say I have 10 acres of farmland that ETP is taking. Iowa farmers can take in more than $15K per acre and net about $6500 based on some of the stats I could find. Using a maximum market price of average $13K per acre if you were to purchase land there, and three years of crop loss, the maximum payout for that 10 acres to the farmer is about $325K. Why would they complain? That is great!

Not so fast…net of $6500 per acre means they earn about $65K per year from those 10 acres. See it now…if that land is damaged and no longer usable, they break even at year 5. Year 6 and beyond they are now down $65K per year from what they used to bring in. On a 100 acre farm, they just took a 10% pay cut. Fair?

How do we fix this? Stop the lobbying and contributions. We have talked a bit about this before, but local government employees can’t even take a $10 lunch for fear of impropriety, yet these elected officials can take millions. Shouldn’t we fear the impropriety there?

Once you are in office, no lobby funds. No dinners, lunches, trips, jobs for you or your family and friends during or after your term, etc…Maybe, if we kill the power of the lobbyists, we can get people in office that want to serve the people, not get paid to favor business. I am in no way anti-business (business creates jobs, not the government), but I do think we need to get the balance back in order towards serving the best interest of the people as well.   Businesses need to thrive and flourish, but legally and ethically…not through purchasing our elected officials.

This has to stop…for the natives who are losing more than just land, for the water that we all need, for the farmers who will have less to pass on to the next generation of farmers, for all of the people being (or who will be) steamrolled by big government at the behest of big business.