Iowans Take a Stand on Eminent Domain for Private Gain

Great news out of Iowa yesterday!  Legislation targeted to restrict the use of eminent domain by private companies not serving Iowans advanced as hundreds of landowners and other stakeholders gathered to speak out at a subcommittee meeting at the Capitol.

NPR has the story.  Listen to the audio, it's better than the print version.

Several landowners spoke out about abusive practices of land agents attempting to secure right-of-way.

“I've heard this from other landowners being told the same thing,” Murray says. “Right-of-way agents are saying this is inevitable so you better take the easement deal before you.”

A spokesman for Bakken crude pipeline company Dakota Access said what the companies always say when faced with the transgressions of their shifty land agents:

“If anybody knows of anyone who’s been dealt with unfairly,” Boeyink says, “get the names to me and we will deal with it swiftly.”

Yada, yada, yada, we will fire any land agent who violates the "code of conduct."  Tell me, if land agents were regularly subjected to firing for using abusively coercive tactics to secure easements, why does it still happen with such regularity?  I don't think I believe it.  I think it's merely window dressing for instances where a land agent is caught by a landowner in a pack of lies.  I think that companies routinely look the other way when violations occur, as long as easement agreements are being filed.  Because for every one unscrupulous land agent that gets reported in the media, there are probably hundreds of others that got away with it.  I have heard numerous horror stories about transmission right-of-way land agents, continuing up until the present.  Where there's this much smoke, there is certainly fire.

The Sierra Club seems to be backing off its hypocritical support of Clean Line transmission projects, while simultaneously opposing pipelines as an abuse of eminent domain.

Wally Taylor of Cedar Rapids, a lawyer for the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club, said his organization is worried about an "extreme risk to property and the environment" if the pipeline project proceeds. There is no doubt that oil spills will occur and it will be many years before the land can be farmed again, he added.

It's also clear that if Bakken crude oil is transported through Iowa, it will be shipped from Illinois onto the world petroleum market via the Gulf of Mexico, Taylor said. "This is all about private property. It isn't about benefiting Iowa or the nation," he said. Similarly, the Rock Island Clean Line would not provide a way for Iowans to connect to the line or to obtain energy from the transmission facility, he added.

That's right, Sierra Club!  Clean Line does not provide a way for pass-thru states to benefit from its projects!   The projects also destroy the environment and economy of pass-thru states and won't actually shut down any coal plants.  Not one!  Sierra Club should really get its act together here and stop worshipping at the alter of grant funding and renewable energy make-believe.

Clean Line's spokesperson tried to get the committee to believe the company plans on acquiring more than 90% of the easements it needs voluntarily. 

Paula Dierenfeld, representing Clean Line Energy Partners, said her company currently has obtained voluntary easements from about 15 to 20 percent of property owners and has a goal of obtaining "well in excess of 90 percent" voluntary easements. But she questioned the proposed requirement to obtain 75 percent voluntary sign-ups before eminent domain can be requested. She said a company could spend millions of dollars on obtaining easements without even knowing whether a project could move forward. She asked whether any businesses would support that idea.

Paula must be new.  Clean Line has obtained all the voluntary easements it's going to get, even with the hard sell tactics reported by Mr. Murray.  15%.  That's it.  The rest is a fairy tale.  The  people of Iowa aren't buying what you're selling.  You know, Paula, risk is a big, big part of being in the merchant transmission business when you don't have an order to construct the project from a regional transmission authority.  Maybe you should ask your bosses at Clean Line why they're supporting the company spending millions of dollars on obtaining easements without even knowing whether their project could move forward?

Way to go, Iowa!