Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.
Nothing better shows how Ohio gets sold to the highest bidder — all nice and legal, of course — than the antics of the state’s Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.
The panel, despite overwhelming public opposition, but with the General Assembly’s lobby-stoked support, lets oil-and-gas drillers frack under Ohio’s state parks and wildlife areas.
True, the drillers have to pay the state money, arguably big money, for the right to do so. But it’s hard to imagine that those payments would cover potentially costly environmental damages, if they occur, to Ohioans’ public property – their state lands.
Gov. Mike DeWine, a Cedarville Republican, appoints the commission, whose operating philosophy seems to be full speed ahead, in a 21st-century echo of 19th-century railroad mogul W.K. Vanderbilt’s notable take on popular opinion – “The public be damned.”
The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission’s exploitation of what is, legally speaking, the property of all Ohioans has been eloquently reported by Cleveland.com’s Jake Zuckerman.