Mars billionaire fights energy firms over drilling

For example, one doesn't typically own the air space whether for transportation or for the distribution of electromagnetic signals; above a certain altitude is a socialized commons. I would argue that such is ultimately a bad thing, but that's how it is.

That is true; it is a socialized commons. There is a certain logic to the other side's designation as such. An airplane traversing over your airspace is a temporary thing - wait 30 seconds and it is gone. Transmission of electronic signals is similar - if the TV station stops broadcasting, the atmosphere remains in place.

Extraction of minerals, oil, natural gas, or even water, is extraction of a physical thing (entity) which has a monetary value associated with it. I don't believe the same logic can be used to justify mineral or oil rights to be a socialized commons, or pieces of property whose exploitation rights can be given/sold to companies.

That’s the way property rights have worked in the west since the states were admitted to the US. For example, in Nevada, the state had to cede all lands not expressly claimed as private property to the US government when the state was admitted in 1864. Ranchers at that time were not interested in the land’s surface rights, only water and grass, so that’s what they claimed. Miners at that time were not interested in the surface rights, only the mineral rights. So the way they got to tie up the maximal value for their capital was to get only those rights.

The only outfits that got land in “lock, stock and barrel” deals were the railroads, the historic Mormon ranches and ranches that were deeded lands prior to the 1848 treaty with Mexico. When the trans-continental rails were completed, the US government gave the rail companies every other section for a path 20 miles either side of the rails themselves to the RR companies. This is today known as the “checkerboard” area, and in Nevada comprises a huge portion of what little private land there is in the state.

If I had my preference, the areas west of the 100th parallel would break away from the US and leave the eastern half of the US to wallow in their own problems. But that ain’t gonna happen any time soon, so split estate is what the easterners shoved down on the west over 100 years ago, and it is what the eastern powers use to control the west today, so westerners have to use what we’ve got.

To produce coalbed methane, the natural gas in question, you commonly have to pump the water out of the coal to get the methane to desorb and be producible as natural gas.

Commonly, though, those same coal beds serve as aquifers in the region, and the water is produced for human and animal consumption.

I'd wager that is the source of the conflict.

As one who has knowledge of coal-bad methane gas production, Smokin' Joe is completely correct. Unlike other types of natural gas extraction (where as the field becomes depleted, increasing amounts of produced water [usually very salty] are extracted), coal bed methane production requires dewatering of the coal first so that the gas can be released and captured. Also, most of this water is fresh in the sense it can be used for irrigation and stock watering. The associated issues are complex and frustrating to both producer and landowner.

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