“In the first week of the program, three sites in Louisiana were acquired by the Corps of Engineers by emi­nent domain. Pipeline right-of-way was similarly acquired; appraisals below industry standards made condemnation necessary. This, however, did not reduce costs or trim start­-up time as intended. The associated legal proceedings increased costs and created delay, and condemnation set the stage for polit­ical trading between Louisi­ana and federal officials in Washington, D.C.”

In the first decades of the twentieth century, fears of an imminent exhaus­tion of oil led to petroleum land withdrawals and the reserva­tion of oil-rich acreage for future military use. Four Naval Petroleum Reserves were set aside between 1912 and 1923. [1] With the discovery of major new oil fields in Oklahoma, Texas, and California in the late 1920s, the new fear – at least for the vested parts of the oil industry – became oversupply.…