What, we are listening to Steve Milloy on his criticism of T. Boone Pickens, and everyone completely ignored him when I pointed out his critique of Global Warming ?
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
I think his analysis on Global Warming was excellent, but I think his analysis of T. Boone Pickens is overly simplistic. For one thing, water rights in the SouthWest are a serious buisness to everyone in the region, and as such people can't get away with any hankey pankey. There is too much oversight by everybody and their dogs to allow this to happen.
The bottom line is, the State Governments are going to trump any legal manuevering that affects water. In other words, if some sort of legal trickery is tried, as soon as it is noticed whatever contracts allowing it will be immediately abrogated, and it doesn't matter if you're T. Boone Pickens, OR the President.
I think the water rights trick is being used to build the transmission line. If an attempt is made to sell any serious quantity of water, there would be an immediate Federal Court injunction as well as State Court injunctions, and all related State agencies would be on his posterior.
The Legal teams of Ft. Worth and Dallas would also likely be involved, and probably dozen's of other legal teams as well.
Oklahoma and New Mexico and Coloradao, and possibly other states would be filing claims and injunctions, and I doubt anyone has enough clout to win the fight. If all else fails, the legislators of all the states involved would use Imminent Domain to strip whatever rights they think they've got.
No sir, water is not a funny business in the southwest.
In any case, I think the judgement that T. Boone is a fink is a little premature. He might be, but I don't see it yet. I believe that if T. Boone was trying to pull something covertly, Neither Steve Milloy, nor any other reporters would likely discover it.
David