Keystone pipeline blocked by Nebraska judge

[Borgholio]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/1 ... 73552.html

A Nebraska judge has issued a temporary injunction barring TransCanada from using eminent domain to force landowners to sell rights allowing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline on their property.

Pipeline owner TransCanada said it will suspend all eminent domain proceedings, including those against landowners who are not among those who sued the company. The company said in a statement that it will seek an accelerated schedule for a trial.

TransCanada filed paperwork in late January to begin using eminent domain to acquire land along the pipeline path from owners who didn't agree to sell rights to the company. This came shortly after the Nebraska state Supreme Court issued a decision that essentially cleared the way for the pipeline, though it left some open legal questions about the process the state had used to approve the route.

A group of landowners affected by the eminent domain claims filed a lawsuit last month in Holt County District Court and vow to keep fighting to throw out the state law that allowed the governor to approve the pipeline route.

Jane Kleeb, director of the anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska, said in a statement Thursday that the temporary injunction is a "major win for landowners."

TransCanada said it had hoped to resolve the legal issues quickly. "During Keystone XL’s six-and-a-half year review, we have followed every local, state and federal process, even as the goal posts have shifted numerous times," TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper said in a statement. "All we have asked for is a clearly defined approval process for Keystone XL."

The company said that 90 percent of Nebraska landowners along the route have accepted "generous" offers to allow the pipeline on their land. "With that said, we are committed to working respectfully with all landowners as shown by today’s decision to stay eminent domain actions until there is a final resolution of the plaintiffs’ claims," said Cooper.

I tend to agree with the sentiment. Eminent Domain for private industry and profit should be done away with. Hasn't even had to be vetoed by Obama yet and it's already having problems.

[Simon_Jester]

The use of eminent domain on private concerns is normally wrong. It becomes tricky when one is dealing with key infrastructure projects that happen to be privately owned. Like virtually all railroads in American history, for instance- the construction of the railroad is generally in the public interest, but someone owns and operates it for profit after having undertaken to pay all reasonable expenses associated with its construction.

So it is understandable for the government to step in, look at a landowner who is demanding a million dollars or whatever in exchange for a few acres of property along the path of the railroad, and hit them with eminent domain.

This has the potential to lead to abuse, but so does almost any government decision. There do need to be limits on this; Bush's Executive Order #13406 is an example of such a limit.

But as long as we don't try to nationalize all major infrastructure programs, eminent domain is still going to be necessary to establish the privately owned parts of the system.

[Gaidin]

That's the funny thing. Given the history of other projects, associated with either other oil lines or other red herring projects(your railroad example) as examples of eminent domain, it may not really be that. I'll put aside my feelings for the environmental aspects of this particular project for the moment as well. What really rubs me the wrong way is the politics. The Congress is trying to push it through on their own whim for the sake of their own politics, where the Executive seems to want to go through the established motions. And with what's been ruled, the company is also going through the motions.

[Kingmaker]

While I have a viscerally negative reaction to the use of eminent domain to seize property in order for it to ultimately end up in the hands of another private owner, is it really fundamentally any different from levying taxes that go into subsidizing private businesses? I suppose you could argue that it is specifically targeting a specific individual or group of individuals for the benefit of another specific (group of) individuals rather than applying generally.

[Simon_Jester]

It is different because there's a difference between expropriating a big chunk of my assets while leaving my neighbor alone, and expropriating a small tithe from everyone's assets. Also, land given to a private owner is theirs more or less in perpetuity and cannot be easily reallocated, whereas financial subsidies can be reallocated at will.

It would be better, frankly, if the government got to take the land and pay the original owner, then rented that land to the pipeline operators. Or leased. Or some such.

[Highlord Laan]

It is different because there's a difference between expropriating a big chunk of my assets while leaving my neighbor alone, and expropriating a small tithe from everyone's assets. Also, land given to a private owner is theirs more or less in perpetuity and cannot be easily reallocated, whereas financial subsidies can be reallocated at will.

It would be better, frankly, if the government got to take the land and pay the original owner, then rented that land to the pipeline operators. Or leased. Or some such.

Several avenues along those lines were initially the idea. Then all the NIMBY retards and rugged individuals in the state started shrieking like howler monkeys anyway, bogged everything down and brought us to the current situation. It's part of why I'm sick and goddamed tired of the fucking morons in my state.

[Tribble]

To be fair, I think the problem isn't so much the pipeline itself but rather who is planning to build it. If it were a US company instead of a Canadian one I'd imagine it would have been well under construction by now.