Gas Pipeline Uses 160 Eminent Domain Suits To Get People’s Property In 3 States

[marmar]

Gas Pipeline Uses 160 Eminent Domain Suits To Get People’s Property In 3 States
by Irina Slav • April 2, 2016


[font color="blue"]There are those who believe that any opposition will be crushed.[/font]
By Irina Slav, Oilprice.com:

Eminent domain is a tough pill to swallow for Americans who take their property rights very seriously, and the aggressive moves by Sabal Trail to seize property for a natural gas pipeline running through three southern states is turning into a drama of immense proportions.

Sabal Trail, the joint venture planning to build a 500-mile natural gas pipeline through Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, has gone to court in order to secure the right of way through the land where the pipeline should pass.

So far, Sabal Trail has filed 160 eminent domain suits and more are expected, according to a report by the Orlando Sentinel. The company is desperately trying to get the right of way through 346 more properties, though it says it has already secured the agreement of 1,248 landowners in the area along the route.

But it’s doubtful that any of these will be allowed by the respective courts to reach the stage of contestation and litigation due to the stated regional importance of the pipeline project. ................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/04/02/gas-pipeline-uses-160-eminent-domain-suits-to-get-peoples-property-in-3-states/

[AxionExcel]

1. "All your private property are belong to us." - Big Pipeline, Inc. (R)

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. 4 counties in Ala. are on the proposed route.

Rural, poor counties, a bit north of where I live.
dunno how much opposition the line will get.

[1939]

3. A pipeline is like a railroad

The law permits a "common carrier" to use legal condemnation procedures to obtain right of way so that individual landowners cannot hold the transportation system hostage in order to demand a huge payout to get the route completed.

The common carrier can request condemnation of a strip of land wide enough for passage for which the common carrier will pay a fair amount as determined by the court.

[Baobab]

4. its an epidemic since Kelo v. City of New London

See Coase's "the Problem of Social Cost" which is used to justify stealing on the basis of "efficiency" basically give rich people more money since they can make more money with it than poor people. this kind of logic can and likely eventually may well be used to push poor people out of cities countries, etc, in large numbers.

being that they are the "losers" of the grand globalisation game.

this is why its SO important to get a GOOD education, meaning an advanced degree, because without it, people are basically dust in the wind .

They don't exist. There are no real enforceable human rights like there should be.

neoliberalism has changed everything legally and the people don't realize it.

[Hortensis]

5. A little balance? WE MUST HAVE ENERGY.

We cannot live without it. Literally. Over 300 million people, every single one of us dependent for life on energy.

Every energy story should be met not with knee-jerk yammering about evil business but with questions as to whether THIS energy development is what should be done, instead of another. We cannot continue using energy as we have been. I'm not crazy about gas pipelines either, but our power cooperative in north Georgia purchases electricity generated almost entirely from coal. In Florida it's about a third from coal. Bad! There is no such thing as "clean coal."

In this case, it is nasty old GOVERNMENT that is making the decision to take property from a few hundred owners -- if necessary -- to benefit tens of millions directly through a better energy source and to benefit our entire nation, even our planet, through reduced emissions. Not business. And I approve -- as an intermediate step to the true, sustainable energy sources we must have if 300 million people are to continue living here.