79-09-B3
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Molecules[edit]
Transcript[edit]On May 1st the news broadcast on WIBC Indianapolis carried a story that more Americans should hear. If you are a listener to that station and by chance missed it, stay tuned. I think you'll be interested. In all my commenting about the foibles and follies of bureaucracy I don't think I've ever compared bureaucrats to children. I like children. But we all know that idle hands can tempt youngsters into mischief. Could that be the excuse for the government shenanigans reported on that May 1st broadcast? The Indiana Farm Bureau struck oil in Gibson County about two years back. And as so often happens got natural gas along with the oil. "Citizens Gas" of Indianapolis contracted to buy the gas. Since there was no pipeline, Texas Gas Transmission Co. agreed to use its pipes providing connecting feeder lines were built. Enter the government. The gas well is in Indiana, the gas was to be shipped in Indiana, sold in Indiana, and used in Indiana. But Texas Gas Transmission is an interstate carrier. The federal government stopped the sale claiming it had the right to regulate it. The Farm Bureau in Gibson County established that it would put X number of cubic feet of gas into the pipeline each day and take the same number of cubic feet out each day in Indianapolis. Therefore there would be no shipping of this gas across state lines even though the pipeline is used for interstate shipments. The federal government said it was true that you could accurately measure the amount of input and outtake of gas but there was no way to be sure that the actual molecules of gas taken out were the same molecules that were put in. And horrors of horrors some of the molecules put into the pipe in Gibson County might stray past Indianapolis and thus cross a state line. Silly as it sounds, the government was demanding that it had regulatory power because there was no way to be sure that the exact same gas would be removed from the pipe in Indianapolis. The Farm Bureau had no other way to move the gas and no storage facility, so for almost two years it burned off $10,300 worth of gas a day. Comes now the end of the story. The government finally gave in. The Farm Bureau prepared to lay a feeder pipe across the bottom of the White river. The Army Corps of Engineers has said no because a professor clamis there might be an endangered species of mussel in the 12 foot wide section of river the pipe is supposed to go in. The professor has searched the section seven times without finding one of the endangered mussels but he's going to keep on trying. So ends this tale of Molecules and Mussels. |
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