No on 74: Unneeded and Dangerous
It’s easy to get confused on Amendment 74. The campaign, shrewdly, makes it sound like something we’d want to pass, but as you’ll read from Oregon’s experience, it’s a disaster in the making.
A flyer from a pro-74 group tells voters, “It’s only fair.” It uses fairness, a value central to most of us, to support something which on closer examination is not fair at all. What 74 would do, as it relates to fracking, is pit the rights of corporations owning mineral rights under the surface against those who own the surface rights.
Home owners are already vulnerable, due to forced pooling and not having the right to say “No, I don’t want you reaching under my home to collect oil.” Both the U.S. and state constitutions and state laws already protect property rights and compensate owners for any “takings” due to governmental regulation.
This bill is not only unneeded but dangerous. A bill similar to Amendment 74 was passed in Oregon and later repealed because it was costing local communities too much, risking the state’s ability to fund other essential services like schools.
Let’s not make the same mistake. Vote NO on 74.
Jasmin Cori
Boulder
