TX rice farmers sue TransCanada over eminent domain

[RandomGuy]

Those damn hippy environmentalists, getting in the way of the free market.

Eff them. I want my cheap gasoline jobs. Ammiright?

Time for you red team libertarians to step up and tell us who is right and who needs to get stuffed.

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Texas landowners fight use of eminent-domain laws in Keystone XL Pipeline development
By LAUREL BRUBAKER CALKINS & MARGARET CRONIN FISK Bloomberg
Published: 9/13/2012 2:13 AM
Last Modified: 9/13/2012 3:29 AM

TransCanada Corp. shouldn't be allowed to use eminent-domain laws to seize land to build the southern leg of its Keystone XL Pipeline near Beaumont, Texas, lawyers for property owners told a judge.

A recent Texas Supreme Court decision may give the landowners the right to prevent TransCanada from taking land for the pipeline, Terry Wood, an attorney for Texas Rice Land Partners, said at a hearing in state court in Beaumont on Wednesday.

That decision limited the ability of pipeline owners to condemn property under certain circumstances. The landowners in Beaumont are fighting to keep Calgary-based TransCanada from immediately entering their properties and starting construction before lawyers and lawmakers have explored what the ruling means.

"This is a case of what's expedient for the pipeline company versus the constitutional rights of landowners," Wood told Jefferson County Court at Law Judge Tom Rugg Sr. Wood urged Rugg to stall condemnation of Texas Rice Land's property.

"You realize you might be asking me to delay the resolution of this case for years," Rugg told Wood.

"That is a possibility," Wood replied.

The judge gave lawyers until Sept. 21 to provide additional briefing and promised to rule by Sept. 24.

"I am concerned that the rights of landowners not be trampled unless there's clear statutory authority to do so," he said.

Tom Zabel, TransCanada's lawyer, told Rugg the pipeline operator believes it has the right under an 1899 Texas statute to start construction without obtaining so-called writs of possession through condemnation proceedings such as the ones today in Beaumont. He said the company has filed the appropriate paperwork and posted the required bonds and should be allowed to proceed as pipelines have traditionally done in Texas.

"Once we've done that, we're entitled to the easements we're seeking. It's that simple," Zabel told Rugg. "The Texas Legislature came up with this scheme because it wanted to encourage oil and gas exploitation, and you can't have oil and gas without pipelines. This is something that's been determined in Texas for more than 100 years."

Zabel said the supreme court ruling doesn't apply to the type of pipeline TransCanada is planning with the Keystone XL.

The ruling, which also involved Texas Rice Land Partners in a lawsuit against a different pipeline, was a "game changer" with statewide implications for pipeline companies, Wood said in an interview after the hearing.

"Before that decision, the pipelines just assumed that, if they said it loud enough and enough times, they had the right" to condemn private property for pipelines, Wood said.

TransCanada began construction last month on part of the 36-inch Keystone XL pipeline, which is designed to bring oil from tar sands of western Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, Brad Johnson, a company spokesman, said in an interview after the hearing.

The initial stretch of pipeline will connect Cushing, Okla., and Nederland, Texas, he said.

Critics of the Keystone XL claim the ruling also requires that pipelines operate for the public good in order to use eminent domain.
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http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20120913_13_E4_ByLaur338661



(man, do I love things that go outside of established narratives, it makes people think a bit more about such things)

I am going to start asking the drill here, drill now crowd how many farmers need to have their land seized to build the oil infrastructure required.

[scott]

Redistribution!

[boutons_deux]

"I want my cheap gasoline jobs. Ammiright?"

The Failure Of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’: Wall Street Journal Reports ‘Oil Boom Providing Little Relief For Consumers’ (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/15/1012681/the-failure-of-drill-baby-drill-wall-street-journal-reports-oil-boom-providing-little-relief-for-consumers/)


The Wall Street Journal reports: (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578056563506705412.html)

U.S. crude production is expected to rise 12% this year and 8% in 2013, when it will hit the highest level since 1993, according to government figures. The price of West Texas crude, the U.S. benchmark, has fallen 7% this year, held down by rising supplies from new drilling methods.

Yet gasoline prices currently average nearly $4 per gallon nationwide. Rising U.S. crude production may seem like an attractive antidote, but it is proving ineffective on its own at a time when the world’s appetite for energy remains voracious and Middle East tension is a reminder that supplies could be disrupted.

“Even the significant increase in U.S. production is a small part of the world oil market,” said Severin Borenstein, co-director of the Energy Institute at the Haas School of Business.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/15/1012681/the-failure-of-drill-baby-drill-wall-street-journal-reports-oil-boom-providing-little-relief-for-consumers/


Same will be true when US natgas is liquified and sold on the international market for $10/unit like it is in Europe, vs $3/unit to US domestic market.

And Canada's shitty oil is going to Port Arthur for export, tax free, to the international markets at international prices, with NO BENEFIT for US consumers, and ALL THE RISK of the inevitable pipeline disasters, plus the pipeline defacing private property.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Eminent domain that ends up in the hands of private firms is a travesty.

In this case its so a private firm can sell domestic oil abroad so they can profit now and we can have higher oil prices down the road.

[TeyshaBlue]

Eminent domain that ends up in the hands of private firms is a travesty.

In this case its so a private firm can sell domestic oil abroad so they can profit now and we can have higher oil prices down the road.

Yeah...it was this kind of ED abuse that finally killed the Trans Texas corridor.

[boutons_deux]

IIRC, TransCanada "abused" ED by getting qualified as a "common carrier" when in fact XL will carry almost exclusively TC tar.


The case has shed light on a loophole in Texas’s oil and gas regulation — one that critics say has given pipeline companies carte blanche to seize private land. Activists across the political spectrum have rallied behind Ms. Crawford’s cause, from conservative rural landowners and Tea Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) organizations to environmental groups.

At issue was whether TransCanada is a common carrier — a company with pipeline open to any oil company willing to pay published rates.

In Texas, a common carrier has the power to condemn land with little oversight.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/texas-judge-rules-transcanada-can-seize-pasture-for-keystone-xl.html

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm betting the pipeline gets built even if TC has to restructure their contracts etc. to allow others to tie in at OKC and technically transport in the pipeline, thus getting over the common carrier hurdle. They could always make the physical tie in but keep their rates high enough that nobody else would want to use them.