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TechnoratiPennsylvania Town Fights Big Coal on Mining Rights
TAYLORSTOWN, Pennsylvania - A small Pennsylvania town is trying to ban coal mining in a battle being played out across the state as rural communities try to assert control over mining, gas drilling and other businesses.
![[Attilia Shumaker, an environmental activist, stands on the porch of an abandoned house that she said was abandoned because coal mining caused the land beneath it to shift, cracking the house's foundation and basement in Blaine Township, Pennsylvania May 12, 2009. A small Pennsylvania town is trying to ban coal mining in a battle being played out across the state as rural communities try to assert control over mining, gas drilling and other businesses. Blaine Township, a community of 600 about 40 miles (65 km) southwest of Pittsburgh, hopes to trigger a legal battle that could determine the rights of municipalities throughout the United States to control corporate activity. Picture taken May 12, 2009. (REUTERS/Jon Hurdle)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/blaine.jpg "blaine.jpg")
Blaine Township, a community of 600 about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, hopes to trigger a legal battle that could determine the rights of municipalities throughout the United States to control corporate activity.
Some legal experts say the township is highly unlikely to win that fight. For now the dispute is in federal district court, where major energy companies have sued the township over three ordinances that would ban coal mining and require companies in any business to disclose their activities to local officials.
Penn Ridge Coal LLC, a unit of Alliance Resource Partners, and Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co., a unit of Allegheny Energy, say Blaine's laws violate their corporate rights.
The companies say the ordinances would prevent them from mining 10.6 million tons of recoverable coal beneath the township -- enough to supply electricity for 2 million people for a year.
The township has gone further than any of the 120 U.S. municipalities -- most of them in Pennsylvania -- that have passed ordinances to curb corporate activity such as factory farming or spreading sewage sludge, said its lawyer, Tom Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
Of three townships sued by corporations over their ordinances, only Blaine has refused to back down, Linzey said.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, towns are resisting efforts by energy companies to extract natural gas from the massive Marcellus Shale formation amid fears that toxic chemicals used in drilling are contaminating ground water and endangering human health.
CREEKS DIVERTED
In Blaine, residents are seeking to prevent coal mining -- which they expect to begin there in 2011 -- because they fear it will ruin their houses and disrupt water supplies, as they say it has in surrounding areas.
They want to block longwall mining, a technique that rips tons of coal from underground without putting anything in its place, causing the land above to sag. The practice, which has been used in coal-rich southwest Pennsylvania since the 1970s, has cracked the walls, roofs and basements of homes and opened fissures in the land, diverting or draining creeks and ponds.
In neighboring Morris Township, Tammy Bowman pointed to a pile of broken wood and concrete -- all that's left of an outbuilding she said was destroyed by shifting ground from mining beneath her 19th century farmhouse.
"It just started to drop and drop," she said. "It got so bad, you couldn't even walk in the door."
One section of her house is held up with mechanical jacks.
Near the village of Graysville, the 62-acre (25-hectare) Duke Lake, once used for fishing and boating, now sits empty after the shifting ground opened a crack in its retaining wall, environmentalists say.
Blaine's three ordinances, passed in 2006, 2007 and 2008, also assert that communities have a right under the U.S. Constitution to control business within their boundaries and that corporations do not have constitutional rights as "persons" to sue municipalities for passing laws that would hurt corporate interests.
"This illegitimate bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations prevents the administration of laws within Blaine Township and usurps basic human and constitutional rights guaranteed to the people of Blaine Township," says the township's Corporate Rights Ordinance of 2006.
To implement the ordinances, township supervisors are now campaigning for "home rule," a legal code that transfers some powers from state to local control and is commonly used to raise taxes or increase the number of supervisors on a board.
ESTABLISHING HOME RULE
Blaine supervisors want to use home rule to establish what they say is the township's constitutional right to control corporate activity. Voters on May 19 approved a plan to set up a commission to study the proposal and recommend whether to adopt it.
A third lawsuit has been brought by Range Resources, a natural gas company, asking the court to invalidate Blaine's demand that corporations disclose their activities.
Penn Ridge Coal and Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal are asking U.S. Judge Donetta Ambrose of the Western District of Pennsylvania to declare Blaine's ordinances invalid and unenforceable.
In April, Judge Ambrose denied the township's motion to dismiss the case. She is expected to rule late this year.
Linzey predicted the case will eventually go to the U.S. Supreme Court because it pits energy companies who want to exploit one of America's richest coal seams against residents who are determined to resist what they see as rapacious mining.
He conceded the court is unlikely to overturn more than 100 years of established law that gives corporations rights as "persons" under the constitution, but he said the expected outcome would become a springboard for a popular campaign for a constitutional amendment to strip corporations of those rights.
Blaine's supervisors said they want to establish a principle of local self-government that will inspire other communities.
"Who dictates how we are going to live here?" asked Board spokesman Michael Vacca. "Should it not be us?"
(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Cynthia Osterman)
51 Comments so far
Show AllAre you all sure US constitutional rights are the source of the problem that results in corporate abuse of the environment and other elements of the public interest? If this is the case, then other countries must not suffer this abuse (because foreign companies operating outside the US have no such constitutional rights). For that matter, US companies operating offshore must not be a problem because their US constitutional rights are not recognized offshore. Can anyone explain?
JoannafromCanada
For those who were asking what to do, the article itself mentions Blain's lawer, Tom Linzey of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
Click on the link and it will take you to their website, where you can make a donation!
www.celdf.org
It would be a welcome miracle if the Supreme Court would decide they have been wrong for more than a century and rule that corporations are not "persons" within the meaning of the 14th amendment. Among many other things, their campaign contributions would no longer be legal, as under the Valeo decision.
Here's another approach to reining in virtually untrammeled corporate power:
Robert C. Hinkley, a New York corporate attorney who quit his job and moved to Maine, notes that all corporations exist because they are chartered in a particular state. The charters declare that the purpose of corporations is to make a profit for shareholders. Hinkley proposes that each state legislature add just a few words to corporate charters: "but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, public health and safety,the dignity of employees, or the welfare of the communities in which the corporation operates."
Hinkley is now in Australia seeking to add this "Code of Corporate Citizenship" to Section 181 of their Corporations Act.
snydly
RIGHT ON PEOPLE!!
THIS ISSUE IS AT THE CORE OF ALL THAT IS WRONG ABOUT OUR NATION AND, INDEED, THE WORLD.
THOM HARTMANN IS THE GO-TO-GUY FOR THIS ISSUE.
WE NEED A "MOVEON" OR "GREENPEACE" - TYPE MOVEMENT TO SUPPORT BLAINE AND OTHERS WHO ARE TAKING ON THE BEAST.
$10 / MONTH FROM 5 MILLION PEOPLE WOULD GET IT GOING.
STRIP CORPORATIONS OF LEGAL "PERSONHOOD"!!
"This illegitimate bestowal of civil and political rights upon corporations prevents the administration of laws within Blaine Township and usurps basic human and constitutional rights guaranteed to the people of Blaine Township"
Illegitimate is correct. Corporations never have and never will have any rights. Let the US government fall trying to defend such a bogus idea. This would be an opportunity for renewal.
I think you've made it all too easy. Getting rid of corporate constitutional rights is not that simple. Should companies be entitled to a fair trial and equal protection under the law? If they don't have these rights, under what system of jurisprudence do they fall? How are corporate personnel tried under a system where they have constitutional rights as persons or under a yet to be devised separate system where they don't?
Thom Hartmann has the definitive work on the issue of the corporate personhood error and the mayhem that has resulted. His book is titled, Unequal Protection. This is the next battle for civil rights and justice that MUST be fought if we are to survive as a nation. To say that corporate power is a cancer is a massive understatement.
No one is going to say that business is not a valuable enterprise for people or even that certain big businesses are not necessary for our overall progress and well-being. But corporate structures that have a legal status equal to individual citizens with nearly absolute immunity from lawsuits and government oversight are a formula for catastrophe.
Attorneys and ordinary citizens from every corner of the US should be heading to PA to stand behind these people and to begin the most important struggle in decades.
For a lot of information on this topic, one should google POCLAD. Thanks.
Maybe we should enlist a few Iranians to help us.
JoannafromCanada
Christ Curtis, maybe we should start fighting our own fights!
Curtis, at least the Iranians are willing to fight for their rights instead of just bitch about them. How many Americans do you see on the streets except for some doctors and nurses fighting for Single Payer?
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Corporations should never have rights of personhood. Money is power... and corporations have the ability to amass much more money than any individual ever can. It's a rigged match.
The confusion between abstractions and concrete realities is the source of every great evil.
The deliberate confusion between a corporation (an abstraction) and an individual (a concrete reality) has been the result of nothing but evil.
It is not the mislabeling but the confusion that creates the evil. The amoral corporation can switch back and forth between being an individual and being an abstraction to suit its needs at any particular moment in time.
Are we and our political institutions really this stupid? I doubt it. I think money changes hands every time the switch is made.
Corporations have no legitimate rights.
All that destruction just to generate a very limited amount of electricity for a very limited amount of time? That is just plain stupidity!
Even your average mom and pop could be converted into a George Heyduke overnight. A cup of sugar in the fuel tank, a cup of sand in the crank case goes a long way toward disabling the beast.
As soon as this pub closes, the revolution starts!
"Some legal experts say the township is highly unlikely to win that fight."
WHAT!?! WHY!?!?
Did the Federal Constitution establish coal mining rights for corporations? Has there been some constitutional amendment that provides protection to pollution?
Seems to me the constitution established certain things the federal government could do with the consent of the governed AND left EVERYTHING else upto local government. If local government says no mining, hey guess what you'll be sued to bankruptcy for defying such, possibly jailed and certainly not get a bunch of dirty fuel out of the ground. How the hell do corporations feel so empowered to sue people to defy their local laws.
Effin ridiculous.
Laws need to be established to punish bully law suits by maniacal profit driven corporations, instead the fed gov has protected the bullies with award limitations. F that.
Whole communities, towns, cities even, need to start meeting to raised hand vote on what we will allow to occur within the community, town, city. Then hash out a plan to enforce what is decided.
Fahk these corrupt judges, corrupt federal government, corrupt state legislatures, corrupt governors, corrupt industries, corrupt corporations and banks. Especially the mercury polluting coal steam power electric industry. Why don't we steam power a hemp engine for electricity if we're going to use ancient steam power? WTF!? Ridiculous. Hemp is one of the quickest growing plants on the planet. Estimates state hemp is potentially worth 10 times the electricity coal produces. Hemp can be grown in every climate on Earth, including at the poles. It can be grown indoor and in water. There is absolutely no reason to dig coal when we could gather plants.
We need a cool off right now so Greenland doesn't drop into the ocean causing massive flooding. If it doesn't cool off soon the methane burp will push us over the edge. Coal carbon dioxide, the dirtiest fuel, is obviously not helping. The Ice Cap at the North Pole is already gone.
People familiar with Black's Law dictionary will know that under "PERSON", corporations are listed as the second definition. This shows how entrenched corporations have become. Both Ralph Nader and Tom Linzey, when questioned on this have responded that althought the battle might be rough, the dictionary itself is not law, thus subject to change. I don't know when the last time a corporation has had it's charter revoked, but it is high time that it happens again. Better still, all corporations should have a ten year "sunset" clause and have to go through the entire process again (IMHO).
What is it about small towns that they have the courage to fight the huge corporations? I guess size really does matter. Bigger is definitely NOT better. Especially when it comes to standing up for justice. If those in the large cities had half the courage of us small-towners, the corporations would be begging last week.
I think it this.
The smaller towns get less in the way of monies at the State , Federal , and Corporate level .
They have nothing to lose.
I heard Ralph Nader talk about the personhood of corporations during his 2008 campaign. He seems to think legislation can force the courts to at least revist (and likely trump) their "entrenched" precedent (the 1886 case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad).
We would not need yet another constitutional amendment, which could itself be misunderstood somehow.
We would just need something like, "this legislation hereby clarifies that references to persons and citizens in the US and state constitutions shall exclusively refer to individual living and breathing human beings."
My wording would also cancel the risk of the Roe v Wade debate being reopened (a very real threat) as a fetus is not breathing.
MakesMeWantNader, Way cool solution! I love it. And it would force the courts to revisit probably faster than these little PA townships could. Do you think if SCOTUS is confronted with the original decision they would dare to ignore it, on the basis of "established precedence" of so many subsequent rulings? I mean they flagrantly violated the law in the 2000 election ruling. So they don't really respect the law or Constitution.
Let's get it out in the open. We're a fascist dictatorship. The corporations own us.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Jim Shea
We have a death sentence for people in this country. If corporations have the legal rights of "persons", shouldn't they also be subject to the same penalties as people? I mean the corporate legal entity, not its officers. In my opinion, some corporations should receive the death penalty. Of course, I also believe the officers should receive long jail terms.
Re chrisy58 June 15th, 2009 1:37 pm
Any evidence of people attempting to take back their gov't is to be greeted with joyful noise, but knowing who holds all the cards (SCOTUS), I join you in your pessimism.
It would be good to learn what Sonia Sotomayor thinks about corporate personhood.
"It would be good to learn what Sonia Sotomayor thinks about corporate personhood."
Indeed!
I hope they succeed, though I don't hold out much hope. I wonder if the American people start waking up and start a grassroots movement of the people to stop the corporations from doing destructive actions, if that movement would be powerful enough to get the message to our government that we do not want corportions to hold so much power in our nation?
it's about TIME there's a springboard for stripping corporate 'persons' of the 'rights' that always seem to trump those of ACTUAL human beings!!!!!!!!! now if that springboard can jump some judges with an actual conscience and concern for the spirit of the law over those only interested in preserving their position in the herd...
www.ni4d.us/ might help
Here we have our national documents stating that "all men are created equal" and then some legislators change our laws that give corporations the rights of persons, but corporations and persons are not only not the same, but the gross inequality makes persons less than we were before that law. This is unjustly cruel.
We should all give that township our support. Anybody have any ideas on how to do so?
SJ, I'd suggest that people support "Corporate Accountability" and Tom Linzey's Defense Fund. I have met Mr. Lindsey in Maine where he has been active trying to save ground water aquifers from international corporations trying to get water rights under the guise of bottled water. This industry, by it's own admission is on the decline, yet the industry moves forward trying to lock up more water rights each year. Mr. Linzey pulls no punches about the prognosis of such a movement, but as he says, this is a movement to change law, to put the people back into controlling positions.
The mistake that was made in Santa Clara County in California in 1886 MUST BE CORRECTED. I am so pleased that the town of Blaine is taking action against 'corporate personhood'.
Stripped of the rights of persons, corporations may be forbidden to participate in our political system IN ANY WAY. It would then be possible to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Think what that could mean! No payoffs to our elected officials to vote in favor of what the 'donors' (really those donations are bribes and we all know that) and vote for what the people want...an end to the ceaseless wars, the funding of our domestic programs---hey, we might then get Single Payer Health care and the prosecution of the people in the Bush administration who violated our Constitution and tortured people.
GO BLAINE!!
wantrealdemocracy, it was no mistake. It was blatant theft of our democracy. The ruling specifically stated corporate personhood wasn't being addressed. The headnotes were written by the Court Reporter, a former railroad executive, with a clause granting personhood to corporations, was published after the March 1888 death of the Chief Justice. That was the beginning of the end of our democracy. This contradicted the Bill of Rights which defined personhood as a living individual and any group formed had only privileges, not rights. With the makeup of our present Supreme Court, we're screwed. How they can support a nonexistent ruling doesn't make sense, but neither does picking a president.
Pretty sloppy to accept headnotes instead of decisions as the basis for rulings.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
WereinthisTogether has most of what you need to know.
Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite was a member of the 'Skull and Bones' secret society, which used to get a lot more attention.
You know, like in 2004 when both Presidential candidates had belonged to the same secret society in college.
And here's an idea I read years ago:
If corporations have the rights of citizens, then they obviously have the right not to be owned by a person or persons, because that's slavery and unconstitutional.
Free the corporations!
Plus any corporation older than 18 years should be allowed to vote. They are persons too!
How come the corporations were not drafted in the Vietnam war? The corporations should have been required to serve 100%, with payment starting the same as a buck private.
It sounds to me like corporate "persons" have "special rights" that are not given to ordinary persons. Where is the equal protection under the law?
All POwer to Blaine !!!!!!!!!!
We threw the oil despoilers(for the time being) out of my county by passing an ordinance that made it too expensive to drill, by having to build roads, pay for fire and police etc.
All these claims about their being lots of coal and oil in the USA but they have to operate in populated areas and in desperate ways.
What is quite ironic to witness is how the tone of Federalist Society judicial douche bags like Antonin Scalia changes when the subject of corporate person hood comes up. If it the case involves privacy rights, he's off on his "The Constitution is not a living document" screed & is not covered at all. But if the case involves a corporation, he and his cronies support the corporate person hood proposition...even though the word corporation is not mentioned anywhere within the text of the 14th Amendment (or even the US Constitution for that matter). Needless to write, the hypocrisy is blatantly obvious.
Thus comes the solution: a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution mandating that only natural persons are entitled to 14th Amendment protections. Factoring in the considerable complexity combined with the dearth of general public knowledge of the issues involved, the aforementioned passage is highly unlikely, sadly.
Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia are the R-A-T-S in Supreme Court. We need some rat poison.
Ich bin ein Blainer. "Alles sind Blaineren" to paraphrase JFK.
Nice one! Clever.
The "corporate citizenship" issue is among the most important of our time. We should find a way to support Blaine Township in their epic struggle.
I would recommend the book: "The Magna Carta Manifesto" for further ammunition.
He conceded the court is unlikely to overturn more than 100 years of established law that gives corporations rights as "persons" under the constitution,...
---------------------
Please tell me where the constitution grants corporations rights as "persons"?
If the corporation is a person, what kind of person?
See the dvd The Corporation (also a book) which spells out in detail that the corporation is a psychopath.
True, the Constitution itself does not grant corporations personhood. However, the 14th Amendment WAS used in Supreme Court cases as justification for such, setting the precedence. In particular, the 1886 case Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad used the definition of personhood found in the 14th Amendment to extend Constitutional rights to corporations. The rest, as they sometimes say, is history . . .
Overturning these assertions in that case is an important step in relinquishing their death grip on us all.
"....an important step in relinquishing their DEATH GRIP on us all".
And that DEATH GRIP is literally what HAS BEEN and IS occurring. Trans-national corporations have a DEATH-GRIP on every branch of our government. It is THEIR FINANCIAL INTERESTS that dictate our domestic and foreign policies.
Recently discovered letters from the Chief Justice at the time show they made no such decision. The "Corporations are persons as defined in the 14th Amendment" part was ONLY in the title, not the decision. The decision was written up by the Court Reporter, who created the title. The CJ, over the period of four years, repeatedly wrote to the reporter and asked him to change it. The CJ then died and the matter of the error was forgotten.
The Court Reporter, interestingly, was a former railroad company president.
Can you say "plant"? Can you say "coup"? I see this as the day the corporations stole the power from the people.
Do a google search on "corporate personhood" and you will be horrified.
I third the notion. If what you say is true, very interesting indeed! Do you have sources? I would love to read those letters and any other subsequent correspondences.
What's your source for the information on the recently discovered letters?
I've read the Santa Clara decision closely, available here: http://supreme.justia.com/us/118/394/case.html . It's obvious that the language added in the non-binding headnote by the court reporter does not reflect the decision in the case.
Only after I figured this out on my own was I moved to confirm my reading of it. I found it confirmed in various places, including here:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/2002/01/01/unequal-protection-the-theft-of-human-rights . Hartmann has other related articles on that site; he discusses the recently found letters.
One implication: the S.Ct never issued a ruling on the subject, whereas in previous decisions it stated that corporations are NOT persons. Technically, those precedents should be the controlling law (stare decisis), and would remain so unless expressly overturned.
Too bad there's not an even higher court to appeal the S.Ct's erroneous decisions since 1886. Oh wait, there is: it's us, We the People, the ones who are supposed to revolt when necessary.
Thank you for the link!
http://www.athenwood.com/uphistory.shtml
Very interesting indeed... more info please!
It's amazing how the "right" go on and on about judicial activism but we hear nary a peep from them regarding one of the most egregious cases of judicial activism in our history - namely the granting of the rights of natural persons to the fictitious legal entities known as corporations. Best of luck to any and all who wage in the fight against the legal standing of corporations as persons. Does anybody know of any other legal challenges to this that are waiting adjudication?