Cast your memory back, dear reader, to the unforgettable summer of 2005. Lynndie England struck a blow for women’s rights, and a young Cardinal Ratzinger taught us how to laugh. It was also the time when the Supreme Court decided the case of Kelo v. City of New England. Howls of outrage could be heard at the prospect of allowing private interests to benefit from the government’s condemnation powers. Indiana legislators held committee meetings and everything agreeing that use of eminent domain for private interests was bad, mmkay?
Flash forward to 2011. Those howls seem to have diminished to the point where the Indiana General Assembly seems to feel it is safe to take private land for the benefit of carbon dioxide transmission pipeline owners. Specifically, SB 251 creates a new Article IC 14-39 entitled “Eminent Domain for Transportation of Carbon Dioxide by Pipeline.”
By “carbon dioxide pipeline” the General Assembly means “the part of a pipeline in Indiana, including appurtenant facilities, property rights, and easements, that is used exclusively for the purpose of transporting carbon dioxide to a carbon management application, including sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and deep saline injection, within or outside Indiana.”
A carbon dioxide pipeline company can apply to DNR for a certificate of authority. The application has to include, among other things, the parameters of the pipe and the location of the pipeline. If DNR makes certain findings — none of which include, by the way, a finding that the pipeline is a good idea or is not detrimental to the surrounding areas — it is required to issue a certificate of authority. In its submission, the pipeline company can designate information as confidential (but not the location or parameters of the pipeline.)
The certificate of authority that DNR is required to issue under those circumstances must include authority to use any designated public-right-of-way and to take and acquire possession by eminent domain of any property or interest in property for the construction, maintenance, or operation of a carbon dioxide transmission pipeline. The company is required to pay 125% of fair market value for agricultural land and 150% of residential property.
So? You don’t know that this state is infested with crony capitalists like Mitch Daniels and friends? Mitch has nothing to do with the Tea Party, you know that.
The syngas project stinks to high heaven, and it isn’t the smell of synthetic methane either. The glutted natural gas market, thanks to fracing technology, should put a stop to this boondoggle.
I’ve got family issues with fracking. My sister-in-law’s property in Texas has been ruined by a fracking interest that moved in down the road — e.g., her water now turns to plastic if you burn it.
— e.g., her water now turns to plastic if you burn it.
On the upside that is a really cool party trick.
Re-reading that, the “bad ‘mkay” was a South Park reference that really doesn’t come across in the text. Serves me right for trying to be funny.
City of *New London*. Anyhow, I think you will start to hear some howls. It took some time for Kelo to gain traction nationally. You will recall the plight of the Hurst Bean plant in Indy surrounding the eminent domain takings for the Colts’ new stadium around the same time, and once that affront gained traction, a good deal of popular sentiment supported the Hursts.
The difference between those cases and this bill, thus far at least, is that we could identify victims by name- Hurst & Kelo. This bill clears the way to create a bunch of Hursts & Kelos in the interest of ‘green energy’. Kelo was egregious because the ‘public use’ was simply that a person’s home could be removed and land given to a developer who would broaden the tax base by increasing the assessed value of that land. Every homeowner could conceive of a project that could potentially wipe out their home in favor of something bigger, glitzier, etc.
There are similarities and differences here. I don’t like it, though. (Disclosure: I acquire right-of-way for a living.) I don’t take eminent domain projects. There’s no sport in those kinds of negotiations.
Notwithstanding your family’s issues, fracing has done amazing things to the natural gas markets. I just paid $4 a gallon for E85 and $4.20 for 87 octane gas, yet you can gas up with $1 per gallon gasoline equivalent with natural gas.
Natural gas is the near term answer to all our energy problems, and we have fracing to thank for it.
Just as long as we don’t shift the costs to people outside of the transaction, I don’t have any particular problem with it. The costs of whatever environmental damage it’s causing ought to be reflected in the price so we can determine whether it’s truly a more cost effective solution.
I don’t think that you understand the scale of the shale oil gas.
To say that “we are the Saudi Arabia of shale gas” is to underestimate our proven reserves.
It is crass to say, but there aren’t enough people in the shale gas geographical areas for cost shifting to be a concern. The finds are simply that large.
Sounds like there should be plenty of money available to pay for the displacement of the people who do live in the area.
Doug: As you know, the controversy over Kelo was almost entirely due to the fact that the fifth amendment requires takings to be “for public use.” Yet here was a municipality taking people’s homes to transfer the rea; estate to a corporation that intended on using it for an office complex. The Supreme Court’s approved it anyway, and the contentious 5-4 decision might as well have struck a black line through the Constitution’s requirement that a taking be “for public use.”
While I am not sure if I fully understand the intended use here, a pipeline sounds alot more “public use” than an office complex for the company that makes Viagra.
The scope of the Kelo project was a lot bigger than transferring real estate to private developers. There was some of that, but a lot of it was very clearly public use:
I’d argue that there is more public use in that plan than taking land so a private company can run a pipeline over it to sell its gas to someone.
Not that I’m too worked up over eminent domain for pipelines — utilities and railroads have been getting eminent domain privileges forever. I just don’t understand how the project described above is less of a public use than the private pipeline case. Mostly, I think, people didn’t know what the hell the Kelo project was. They thought it was only taking private land so developers could build condos and improve the tax base.
I don’t know Doug. To me, a pipeline seems much more public use than a mixed development than the parcels you discuss above.
Why? Unless I’m reading this correctly, a private interest that wants to ship gas from its facility either from or through Indiana to a destination outside of Indiana gets to exercise the state’s eminent domain powers to run its pipe. Not sure what the public benefit is there.
My general thoughts:
(1) It is public use, not in-state public use.
(2) A utility is quasi-governmental. This is why they are subject to so much regulation. A pipeline has tremendous amounts of investment costs. It makes no sense to have multiple pipelines competing, because the investment cost is too high. If this is an acceptable monopoly type of situation, it is close enough to a public use to be acceptable.