OPINION

The ACP: Privatize profit, socialize risk

R. Matthew Poteat

Like thousands of other people in the Atlantic Coast pipeline’s path, I’m what Dominion calls an “adjacent property owner.” The proposed pipeline won’t cross my property, but it’s next to it. People like me won’t get any money, recompense or gas from it, only the risk.

When asked about such risks — explosions, declining property values, groundwater pollution — Dominion told me it didn’t cross my property so I had nothing to worry about. In other words, shut up and take it. You can trust us.

Dominion’s platitudes about “jobs” and “protecting the environment” are supposed to quell dissent. They claim that the ACP will generate more than $14.6 million in additional tax revenues for the state, including individual income and corporate income tax revenues. Consider, however, that Dominion’s CEO, Thomas Ferrell, earns nearly that in a year.

Virginia doesn’t really have anything that compensates its residents in a similar way that Alaska’s Permanent Fund or Texas’ Permanent School Fund does. These are public programs largely funded by the oil, gas and energy industries.

The Texas fund is the largest educational endowment in the country at $37 billion and it pays for more than just chalk. According to TEA Media Director Debbie Ratliffe, “the education board sets aside a certain amount of the profits that will be used for schools each year. The state constitution requires that the first draw on the money is to provide free textbooks for kids and, if any money is left over, to provide it directly to districts based on a per student amount. That typically amounts to around $275 to $300 per student per year.”

Alaskans, however, receive direct payments annually from about $1,000 to $2,000 from their fund. Last year, more than 640,000 Alaskans got a $1,884 dividend.

The history of how Alaska’s fund came about is particularly interesting. It started with the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s and according to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, “Alaskans realized that they were about to receive a great deal more money from oil when the pipeline was complete. They wished to better safeguard the robust income forthcoming from the pipeline, but the state constitution did not allow for dedicated funds. So Alaskans voted in 1976 to amend the constitution to put at least 25 percent of the oil money into a dedicated fund.”

Here in Virginia, nothing of the sort exists. Of course, Virginia could never reach the level of energy production that those states have, but establishing some sort of public fund, or a commitment to investing in renewable energy, doesn’t seem to be a part of the discussion, only that Dominion will pay some property tax and dole out a bit of charity.

The Dominion Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm, annually awards “about $20 million” in charitable giving: or about 0.13 percent of company revenues, roughly equal to the net worth of Dominion’s top executives.

They claim the pipeline will save $377 million per year in lower energy costs, but what are the costs of degraded water and land? What are the costs of investing in fossil fuels that increasingly warm the planet, poison our wells, and damage our health? What are the costs of compromising our rural landscape, national forests, and wilderness areas and those businesses dependent on each?

As pipeline opponents say, it’s “all pain and no gain” for us little folks left with a huge pipeline that not only encourages more fracking and puts our property and community at risk, but crosses over public land to the benefit of corporate profit.

Email the writer at rmpoteat@gmail.com.