Welcome to the Future!
The elected official: U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-WA)
The project: Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline
What are the facts aroudn the pipeline?
Oregon Live | Op-Ed by Landowners | Blocking eminent domain for private gain: Guest opinion
The pipeline location: Virginia
The pipeline campaign background on messaging tactics on eminent domain:
What was the pipeline response when the campaign materials were inadvertently placed on its website:
Wisconsin Counties are passing resolutions to support legislation that would prohibit eminent domain for private gain.
Daily Jefferson County Union | Eminent domain reform reviewed
A Virginia House of Delegates candidate has phrased her opposition to eminent domain as:
“protect individual property rights from eminent domain when it is to be used to benefit private corporations rather than the public.”
Augusta Free Press | Sierra Club endorses Michele Edwards in 20th District House race
How is eminent domain bringing together “gun toting conservatives” & “liberal envrionmentalists”? Eminent Domain use for pipelines
Tell me where this is happening…? In Virgina & North Carolina with opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is set to bring natural gas from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to electric power plants in Virginia and North Carolina
(it also happened in Keystone XL)
Duke University | The Chronicle | They’ll be singing Kumbaya
An attorney colum in the Huntsville Item raises these concerns about the notice procedures for eminent domain in Texas:
The column points to condeming entities bewing pipelines, transmission lines or local governments.
Court: Illinois Supreme Court
The Ruling: to be able to receive the power of eminent domain in Illinois, a utility must own real property, and the transmission line companies at issue do not own real property in Illinois.
Is there a way for the project to move forward: Yes, if the comapnies move forward as private companies without the power of eminent domain
Add another federal lawsuit to the list of whether pipelines consistite a public use that triggers eminent domain for private entities.
The new lawsuit is in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
4 States have expereinced different reactions ont he same topic- pipelines & eminent domain:
…
In a nod to the Denbury case, land owners across the east coast are suing FERC in federal court over whether pipelines have a public use that justifies eminent domain authority.
What to watch:
A group of nuns in Pennsylvania own land that the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline would like to occupy.
The nuns have taken the unusual step of suing the federal government claiming that the interstate natural gas pipeline violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Its a show down between the 5th Amendment (private property rights home) and the 1st amendment (protection of freedom of religious exercise).