Questa settimana la corte suprema del Nebraska ha rigettato una presunzione d’incostituzionalità degli espropri per pubblica utilità a favore del gasdotto Keystone, spianando così la strada alla confisca di terreni privati, comprese falde acquifere vulnerabili, e completare l’attraversamento dello stato in direzione del Texas. La lobby finanziata dai Koch ha una presenza pesante nel progetto; tra le altre cose, finanzia messaggi pubblicitari che attaccano i politici contrari al progetto. I gasdotti a lunga distanza, ovviamente, dipendono dai diritti di prelazione dello stato su grosse porzioni di terreni non edificati, hanno trattamenti di favore, e ricorrono all’esproprio quando il privato non vuole vendere. Più in generale, sono proprio le industrie estrattive, come quella del petrolio e del carbone, ad avere più bisogno dell’accesso esclusivo a quelle terre acquisite con diritto di prelazione dallo stato. Sono loro ad avere più bisogno dello stato per evacuare territori ricchi di risorse.

A proposito, il Bollettino della Società Sismologica Americana questa settimana ha pubblicato una ricerca che attribuisce una serie di 77 terremoti in Ohio, tra cui uno abbastanza forte da essere percepito con i sensi, alla fratturazione idraulica. Le scosse sono avvenute lungo una linea di frattura e sono dovute ad uno scivolamento causato dai processi di fratturazione, processo che prevede il pompaggio ad alta pressione nel sottosuolo di enormi quantità di acqua e agenti chimici per spaccare lo shale e liberare il gas. Tanto per dire la mia, non credo che iniettare milioni di litri di questo minestrone chimico in una formazione rocciosa instabile e permeabile faccia un gran bene alle acque di superficie.

Tutto ciò sarebbe impossibile se fosse ancora in vigore la responsabilità civile per atti illeciti prevista in molti statuti dalla common law fino al 1830 circa. Con la tradizionale common law, una persona era responsabile dei danni apportati ai suoi vicini, punto. A partire dai primi dell’ottocento, però, una serie di precedenti modificarono gli standard di responsabilità così da renderli più favorevoli alle aziende: non solo la parte lesa doveva sobbarcarsi pesanti oneri per dimostrare il dolo, ma c’era tutta una serie di “attività economiche e commerciali in regola con le norme” virtualmente esente da responsabilità. Se fossero ancora in vigore le vecchie norme, chi pratica la fratturazione, chi spiana una collina avvelenando le falde acquifere di un’intera comunità, chi con l’inquinamento causa un aumento dei tumori, o semplicemente distrugge l’ecosistema di una valle intera, si vedrebbe imputare la responsabilità dell’atto da un tribunale, e gli abitanti non rimarrebbero con un pugno di mosche. Attività come la fratturazione idraulica, o i gasdotti, con tutti i rischi che comportano per l’aria e l’acqua (a prescindere dal fatto che tali rischi siano previsti o meno in “attività in regola”) probabilmente non sarebbero assicurabili.

Dopo che i tribunali ebbero indebolito le norme della common law, ecco che arriva la Epa (l’agenzia americana per l’ambiente, es) con le sue norme minime in materia di inquinamento dell’aria e dell’acqua, che suonano come un’esenzione dalla responsabilità: l’espressione “nel pieno rispetto delle norme vigenti” è una scappatoia legale che prescinde dal danno vero e proprio causato alle comunità. A coronare il tutto, c’è ogni genere di legislazione che attribuisce responsabilità artificialmente basse in casi come perdite di petrolio in mare, perdite degli oleodotti e incidenti nucleari, legislazioni che rendono queste attività artificialmente remunerative.

Riassumendo, quando Charles Koch dice di essere per “libertà economica”, vuole dire che le industrie che estraggono, raffinano e trasportano i combustibili fossili (sotto la protezione piena dello stato) devono essere libere di rubare, avvelenare e fare altri danni senza pagarne le conseguenze. Proprio quel genere di “libertarismo” di cui non abbiamo bisogno.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

This week the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the use of eminent domain for the Keystone pipeline, clearing the way to seize private land (including vulnerable aquifers) to complete the pipeline route across the state on its way to Texas. Koch-funded lobbying organizations are heavily behind the Keystone project (among other things, funding attack ads against politicians who oppose the project). Long-distance pipelines, obviously, depend both on state preemption of large tracts of vacant land and preferential grants of access, and on the use of eminent domain to seize land from private owners who decline to sell. And more generally, extractive industries like oil and coal have had a close dependency on privileged access to land preempted by the state or on the actual clearance of existing populations from resource-rich land.

In related news, the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America this week published research attributing a series of 77 earthquakes in Ohio — including one strong enough to be felt by humans — to hydraulic fracturing. This follows on research over the past couple of years associating large numbers of earthquakes in Oklahoma and Texas with fracking. The quakes in Ohio all occurred along a faultline due to slippage caused by the fracking process, in which enormous quantities of high-pressure water and chemicals are injected into the ground to fracture shale rock and free up gas for extraction. Just for the record, injecting a million gallons of chemical soup into unstable and permeable rock formations probably isn’t very good for the groundwater, either.

This is the kind of thing that simply could not have been done under the common law of tort liability as it existed in most states until the 1830s or so. Under traditional common law, you were responsible for anything you did to harm your neighbor, period. But from the early 19th century on, state case law heavily modified liability standards to make them more commerce-friendly — not only by requiring plaintiffs to meet new burdens of negligence over and above the bare fact of harm, but by treating a whole array of “standard business or commercial practices” as safe harbors against negligence. If the original standards were still in effect, those responsible for a fracking or mountaintop removal operation that poisoned the groundwater for all the communities sharing an aquifer, or caused a local cancer spike from pollution, or just plain destroyed the ecosystem of an entire valley, would be assessed full damages by a civil jury and likely not be left with a pot to pee in. And activities like fracking or pipelining that carried non-negligible risks of causing such harm to air and water — regardless of whether the risks were entailed in “standard practices” — would likely find themselves uninsurable.

In addition to this weakening of common law standards in the state courts, the minimal regulatory standards drafted by the EPA under clean air and water legislation are treated as safe harbors against liability — “in compliance with all regulatory standards” is a legal defense regardless of any actual harm done to surrounding communities. On top of that, we have all sorts of corporatist legislation imposing artificially low liability caps on things like offshore oil spills, pipeline leaks and nuclear meltdowns that make these activities artificially profitable.

So when Charles Koch says he’s for “economic freedom,” what he means is the freedom of fossil fuel extraction, refining and transport companies — with the full protection of the government — to rob, poison and otherwise injure without consequences. That kind of “libertarianism” we don’t need.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Con Libertari come i Fratelli Koch, chi Ha Bisogno dello Stato?

El oleoducto Keystone XL ha inspirado una buena cantidad de controversia. Sin embargo, la controversia debería ser nula para los que estamos a favor de los mercados liberados. Cualquiera que se considere un libertario debería oponerse a su construcción enfática y definitivamente.

Sin embargo, la revista libertaria estadounidense Reason publicó un video en el que se detallan “tres razones para construir el oleoducto”. El editor Nick Gillespie nos explica que, “1. El petróleo no se va a quedar enterrado bajo tierra para siempre… 2. El oleoducto no es un desastre ecológico en potencia… 3. El oleoducto es bueno para la economía”.

Aunque sea tan solo en aras del argumento, concedamos los tres puntos anteriores. Aún así, los libertarios deberíamos oponernos a la construcción del oleoducto, porque los libertarios valoramos los derechos de propiedad — y el oleoducto tal como está concebido es un gigantesco monumento a la manera en que el gobierno viola los derechos de propiedad de la gente de común y corriente.

Desde que comenzó a planificar la construcción de Keystone XL, TransCanada Corporation ha utilizado doctrinas de dominio eminente para robarse más de cien terrenos solamente en el estado de Texas . Y si se le da la luz verde, el oleoducto correrá por la llanura como bandido en en el mejor estilo de película western.

Por supuesto, la empresa en principio ofrece a aquellos que están contentos viviendo donde viven la oportunidad de negociar su evacuación. Pero cuando eso no dé el resultado esperado, los dueños de las tierras recibirán cartas como la que recibió Julia Trigg Crawford, diciendo que “Si Keystone no puede negociar exitosamente la adquisición voluntaria de las servidumbres necesarias, tendrá que recurrir al ejercicio de su derecho estatutario de dominio eminente”.

Tal como una vez lo señaló Lysander Spooner, al menos el ladrón de carretera “no pretende tener ningún derecho legítimo” sobre la propiedad de su víctima.

Si uno se encontrase en la situación de los Crawford, cualquier desviación de la oferta final lo llevaría a no oír nada de TransCanada hasta que su tierra esté condenada. A medida que se corre la voz, los dueños de las tierras se sienten amenazados. Y se resignan a aceptar cualquier migaja que les tiren a cambio de sus tierras, antes de que se las arrebaten.

Incluso cuando no se usan directamente las doctrinas de dominio eminente, es difícil caracterizar la transacción como “voluntaria”. Y esta manera de actuar se vuelve aún más turbia cuando consideramos que se están llevando por delante la soberanía tribal para construir sobre cementerios indígenas, como los de la Nación Sac y Fox. Aparentemente ni siquiera la muerte puede salvar a los Sac y Fox de los colonizadores dispuestos a destruir sus hogares.

¿Por qué nos pide Gillespie que aceptemos este descarado robo, intimidación y dominación de los dueños de las tierras por parte de las élites corporativas y sus títeres políticos? Porque “el oleoducto es bueno para la economía”.

En otras palabras, exactamente el mismo razonamiento que le permitió a la ciudad de New London robarle su casa a Susette Kelo en el 2005. Para ese entonces, el co-editor de Gillespie, Matt Welch, denunció acertadamente la defensa de esa usurpación que hizo el New York Times como un enfoque “crudamente anti populista en el que el fin justifica a los medios”.

Al menos que Gillespie y otros libertarios que apoyan la construcción del oleoducto estén dispuestos a disentir con Welch y defender el dictamen Kelo, deberían revisar su posición sobre Keystone. Obviamente, los derechos de propiedad de los Crawford, los de la Nación Sac y Fox y los de las otras víctimas de TransCanada son tan sacrosantos como los de Kelo.

Un libertario que apoye el oleoducto pueda que responda que no apoya las doctrinas de dominio eminente, sino que simplemente apoya la construcción del oleoducto. Pero eso es imposible. El oleoducto de TransCanada es inseparable de las acciones criminales que conlleva su construcción.

Cualquiera sean las justificaciones para un oleoducto hipotético que se construya bajo condiciones pacíficas, éstas no justifican el oleoducto de la vida real. Al menos no lo justifican más que un argumento similar que podría hacerse a favor de la construcción de un estacionamiento que requiriese la demolición de la casa de Nick Gillespie.

El calificativo de “libertario” pierde su significado si no implica la defensa de la justicia. No puede, ni debe, significar la legitimación del feudalismo siempre que éste “sea bueno para la economía”.

Artículo original publicado por Jason Lee Byas el 23 de febrero de 2013.

Traducido del inglés por Alan Furth.

Yet leading libertarian magazine Reason has put out a video detailing “three reasons to build the pipeline.” Editor Nick Gillespie explains, “1. The oil isn’t going to stay buried … 2. The pipeline isn’t a disaster waiting to happen … 3. It will help the economy.”

Just for the sake of argument, let’s concede all three of these points. Libertarians should still oppose the pipeline, because libertarians value property rights — and the pipeline as conceived is a giant monument to political government’s disregard for the property rights of everyday people.

Since beginning to plan Keystone XL, TransCanada Corporation has used eminent domain to steal more than a hundred tracts of land in Texas alone. If it gets the green light, the pipeline will run up through the plains like a burglar on a spree.

Of course, the company does initially offer those who have what they want a chance to make the transaction voluntarily. When that doesn’t work, though, unsuspecting landowners receive letters like the one Julia Trigg Crawford got, saying “If Keystone is unable to successfully negotiate the voluntary acquisition of the necessary easements, it will have to resort to the exercise of its statutory right of eminent domain.”

As Lysander Spooner once remarked, at least a highwayman “does not pretend that he has any rightful claim” to your property.

If you’re like the Crawfords, any deviation from that final offer and you’ll hear nothing from TransCanada until your land’s condemned. As word spreads, landowners feel threatened. They scramble to agree with whatever crumbs they’re offered, before their land just gets taken instead.

Even when eminent domain isn’t directly used, the transaction can hardly be called “voluntary.” Such means become darker still when we consider that they’re being used to override tribal sovereignty and build over Native American burial grounds, like those of the Sac and Fox Nation. Apparently not even death can save the Sac and Fox from colonists intent on destroying their homes.

Why does Gillespie ask us to accept this outright theft, intimidation, and domination of landowners by corporate elites and their state puppets? “It will help the economy.”

In other words, literally the exact reasoning that let the city of New London steal Susette Kelo’s home in 2005. Back then, Gillespie’s co-editor, Matt Welch, rightly called the defense offered by the New York Times an “anti-populist, ends-justify-the-means approach on … naked display.”

Unless Gillespie and other pro-pipeline libertarians are willing to disagree with Welch and start defending the Kelo decision, they should rethink their position on Keystone. Surely the property rights of the Crawfords, the Sac and Fox Nation, and TransCanada’s other victims, are just as sacrosanct as Kelo’s.

A pro-pipeline libertarian might respond that they don’t support the eminent domain, just the pipeline. But this is impossible. TransCanada’s pipeline is inseparable from its criminal actions pursuant to building that pipeline.

Whatever justifications are offered for a hypothetical, peacefully acquired pipeline do not justify the real world pipeline. At least no more than justifications for a hypothetical parking lot would justify one built by taking a wrecking ball to Nick Gillespie’s home.

If the title “libertarian” is to mean anything, it must mean a defense of justice. It cannot, and must not, mean endorsing feudalismwhenever “it’s good for the economy.”

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Una Buena Razón para No Construir el Oleoducto Keystone XL: La Justicia.