converted into deeded rights after an oil or gas
63. Data for 199394 from Jonathan Adler,
strike. What is needed is a way of extending the
Environmentalism at the Crossroads (Washington:
definition of traditional oil and gas rights in land
Capital Research Center, 1995), pp. 147238.
to include descriptions of how those rights
64. See James L. Barr and David E. Pingry,
become rights to share in discovered common
"Rational Water Pricing in the Tucson Basin,"
property reservoirs.
Arizona Review, no. 25 (October 1976): 112.
67. For a compelling rejoinder to that argument,
see John Chant, Donald McFetridge, and Douglas
65. See Vernon L. Smith, "Water Deeds: A
Smith, "The Economics of the Conserver
Proposed Solution to the Water Valuation Prob-
Society," in Economics and the Environment: A
lem," Arizona Review, no. 26 (January 1977): 710.
Reconciliation, ed. Walter Block (Vancouver: Fraser
66. Note the need to distinguish between rights to
Institute, 1989), pp. 193.
undiscovered oil and gas, which include explo-
ration rights, and rights to draw on discovered oil
68. See further Richard Gordon, "The Case for
and gas reservoirs whose size and extent have been
Public Lands Privatization," Cato Institute Policy
estimated. A knotty problem, which we will not
Analysis, 1999, forthcoming.
attempt to treat in this proposal, is the process
69. Loomis.
whereby rights to undiscovered oil and gas get
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