5 ms·

Seize their operations elsewhere?

by ouid 3y ago

gruez 3y ago
Getting a court ruling enforced in a foreign country is going to be very difficult.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Most global finance happens in NYC. California could also seize wells via eminent domain now to start remediating early, instead of allowing continued extraction and profit, with the end result still being leaving taxpayers on the hook after shareholders throw the carcass on the public tab. They’re the fifth largest global economy, they can afford to litigate challenges until the heat death of O&G. Kill the businesses with forced liability for the costs to clean up their assets.
  - abernard1 3y ago
    > They’re the fifth largest global economy Were there perhaps reasons why California was (at least for now) the fifth largest global economy? And could that be partially related to this particular story? I for one encourage California to file suit on all of its industries, as its "fifth largest economy" status is immutable and unrelated to all icky things involving the physical world. File suits against oil and gas, agriculture, the defense sector and aerospace, manufacturing, and imports. Make real estate unrealistically expensive and provide all physical storefronts with sufficiently prohibitive regulations to show them just who is boss in this new ethereal, software-and-services only economy. The fifth largest economy can surely do that. That will teach them a lesson.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      The industries you mention aren’t going to leave California with enormous liabilities such that the wells that will require remediation enumerated in this report will. Absolutely, drive businesses dumping externalities on the state taxpayers out. There is no reason to keep them if it’s a net negative to the tune of $21B. You’re stealing from taxpayers for shareholder profits otherwise.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        >There is no reason to keep them if it’s a net negative to the tune of $21B. One reason is that the people benefiting from the use of the thing now rarely are the ones to suffer the damages that pop up later.
      - abernard1 3y ago
        Except of course, it's not negative to the tune of $21B. Any more than California diverting half its rainwater to the ocean was either environmentally or economically useful to its ecosystem. This is the same state where a good 70% of the population was under the delusion its state government could competently produce a train from North to South _and_ that they actually wanted to do so for altruistic reasons unrelated to buying off that critical missing piece of the legislature for supermajority budget power. This is the same state whose very non-unique ecosystem plagues it with wildfires because they have no forest management. The same state whose governor and highest ranking elected officials graduated from a city that can't figure out how to keep homeless people from dying on the street in droves. California, and especially its "expert" class, is a political construction. It's amazing that after 50 years of chronic failure and a tax base solely built around capital gains and rent extraction from their two-tiered feudal economic sector that anyone trusts anything that comes out of California. It's delusional. If people's status wasn't so tied into this dream and idea of California progress, everyone could see it for what it truly is.
        toomuchtodo 3y ago
        > Except of course, it's not negative to the tune of $21B. Please prove this assertion with citations. The rest of your comment has no relevance to the topic at hand.
        abernard1 3y ago
        > The rest of your comment has no relevance to the topic at hand. My comment, much like credibility of "expert" testimony in a trial, has to do with large scale failures of so-called expert governance in California. I'm sure all of the embarrassing failures I mentioned had plenty of citations, just as I'm sure that the decrepit weirdly-fancy-for-a-third-world-banana-republic of San Francisco had reams of highly-remunerated research around their policy innovations on homelessness. Problems which in other far more boring cities were, if not solved problems, managed well due to common sense.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Seizing wells using eminent domain would be extremely expensive because the state would have to compensate owners at the current fair market value.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Does fair market value include future remediation costs? And if not, perhaps policy should specify that it does. If the well has zero FMV (future revenue minus remediation costs is negative), there is nothing to compensate the owner for. The state is simply saying, “you may no longer extract what you can’t afford to wind down in an orderly fashion.” The well is already worthless. Allow them to keep the well if they put up a sufficient bond to cleanup in the future, using reasonable future well closure and cleanup costs. They will be unwilling to if cleanup costs > remaining extraction value (assuming economically rational actor). Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182494 https://www.brookings.edu/research/overview-and-analysis-of-the-biden-administrations-recent-regulatory-review-and-analysis-changes/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/overview-and-analysis-of-...
    - robotresearcher 3y ago
      If legislation applied the externalities properly, the FMV would be much lower, or if you believe the article, maybe negative.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
ckemere 3y ago
I'm sure each well is an LLC. Limiting liability through corporations is imhop the biggest problem with the current world....

Seize their operations elsewhere?

by ouid 3y ago

Seize their operations elsewhere?

gruez 3y ago

Getting a court ruling enforced in a foreign country is going to be very difficult.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Most global finance happens in NYC. California could also seize wells via eminent domain now to start remediating early, instead of allowing continued extraction and profit, with the end result still being leaving taxpayers on the hook after shareholders throw the carcass on the public tab. They’re the fifth largest global economy, they can afford to litigate challenges until the heat death of O&G. Kill the businesses with forced liability for the costs to clean up their assets.
- abernard1 3y ago
  > They’re the fifth largest global economy Were there perhaps reasons why California was (at least for now) the fifth largest global economy? And could that be partially related to this particular story? I for one encourage California to file suit on all of its industries, as its "fifth largest economy" status is immutable and unrelated to all icky things involving the physical world. File suits against oil and gas, agriculture, the defense sector and aerospace, manufacturing, and imports. Make real estate unrealistically expensive and provide all physical storefronts with sufficiently prohibitive regulations to show them just who is boss in this new ethereal, software-and-services only economy. The fifth largest economy can surely do that. That will teach them a lesson.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    The industries you mention aren’t going to leave California with enormous liabilities such that the wells that will require remediation enumerated in this report will. Absolutely, drive businesses dumping externalities on the state taxpayers out. There is no reason to keep them if it’s a net negative to the tune of $21B. You’re stealing from taxpayers for shareholder profits otherwise.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      >There is no reason to keep them if it’s a net negative to the tune of $21B. One reason is that the people benefiting from the use of the thing now rarely are the ones to suffer the damages that pop up later.
    - abernard1 3y ago
      Except of course, it's not negative to the tune of $21B. Any more than California diverting half its rainwater to the ocean was either environmentally or economically useful to its ecosystem. This is the same state where a good 70% of the population was under the delusion its state government could competently produce a train from North to South _and_ that they actually wanted to do so for altruistic reasons unrelated to buying off that critical missing piece of the legislature for supermajority budget power. This is the same state whose very non-unique ecosystem plagues it with wildfires because they have no forest management. The same state whose governor and highest ranking elected officials graduated from a city that can't figure out how to keep homeless people from dying on the street in droves. California, and especially its "expert" class, is a political construction. It's amazing that after 50 years of chronic failure and a tax base solely built around capital gains and rent extraction from their two-tiered feudal economic sector that anyone trusts anything that comes out of California. It's delusional. If people's status wasn't so tied into this dream and idea of California progress, everyone could see it for what it truly is.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        > Except of course, it's not negative to the tune of $21B. Please prove this assertion with citations. The rest of your comment has no relevance to the topic at hand.
        abernard1 3y ago
        > The rest of your comment has no relevance to the topic at hand. My comment, much like credibility of "expert" testimony in a trial, has to do with large scale failures of so-called expert governance in California. I'm sure all of the embarrassing failures I mentioned had plenty of citations, just as I'm sure that the decrepit weirdly-fancy-for-a-third-world-banana-republic of San Francisco had reams of highly-remunerated research around their policy innovations on homelessness. Problems which in other far more boring cities were, if not solved problems, managed well due to common sense.
- nradov 3y ago
  Seizing wells using eminent domain would be extremely expensive because the state would have to compensate owners at the current fair market value.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Does fair market value include future remediation costs? And if not, perhaps policy should specify that it does. If the well has zero FMV (future revenue minus remediation costs is negative), there is nothing to compensate the owner for. The state is simply saying, “you may no longer extract what you can’t afford to wind down in an orderly fashion.” The well is already worthless. Allow them to keep the well if they put up a sufficient bond to cleanup in the future, using reasonable future well closure and cleanup costs. They will be unwilling to if cleanup costs > remaining extraction value (assuming economically rational actor). Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36182494 https://www.brookings.edu/research/overview-and-analysis-of-the-biden-administrations-recent-regulatory-review-and-analysis-changes/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/overview-and-analysis-of-...
  - robotresearcher 3y ago
    If legislation applied the externalities properly, the FMV would be much lower, or if you believe the article, maybe negative.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

ckemere 3y ago

I'm sure each well is an LLC. Limiting liability through corporations is imhop the biggest problem with the current world....