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Comment by stult | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't seem like a workable standard. How will Wyoming distinguish between conservation bidders and commercial bidders that simply choose not to produce for economic reasons? Meaning, what happens if the prices of oil and gas crash, causing a non-conservation bidder not to drill or pump on one of these parcels? Will the state compel them to produce and sell at a loss?

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It likely will work like mining claims - if you work the claim, you can keep it. If you abandon the claim, it goes back to the public and someone else can claim it.

A potential creative conservation path is to buy a shell LLC from a defunct O&G company, acquire the lease in the bidding process, and slow roll the development until the state attempts to void the lease. File suit when the state attempts to void the lease, and allow the legal process to drag on. Find flaws in the process and work the process. This should all still be tax deductible if your paperwork is in order.

"Why haven't you developed yet?" "Still working on it, things are hard you know, parts, labor, low price of natural gas, all that jazz. But we'll get to it, promise."

Think like a threat actor attacking attack surface of a target system, if your desired outcome is to outmaneuver these folks from a conservation perspective.

Or proceed ahead with the minimum viable extractor. A working well that draws one gallon a day is still a working well.

The same BS that O&G interests fund to stop green energy projects. Beautiful.

Enclosing the commons for the sole purpose of enclosing the commons is bad.

Treating the commons (the air) as your free sewer is worse.

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