Eminent domain for pipeline. Good or bad?

[zzzz]

The use of Eminent Domain has expanded in recent years to private companies. This story is an example of the use by a pipeline company and I am sure if there ever is a pipeline from Canada the companies involved there will have the same power. After all the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few.

When federal regulators approved a 39-mile natural gas pipeline through northern Pennsylvania's pristine Endless Mountains, they cited the operator's assurances that it would make sparing use of eminent domain as it negotiated with more than 150 property owners along the pipeline's route.
Yet a few days after winning approval for its $250 million MARC 1 pipeline in the heart of the giant Marcellus Shale gas field, the company began condemnation proceedings against nearly half of the landowners - undercutting part of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval rationale and angering landowners.
Some of the landowners are now fighting the company in court, complaining that Central New York Oil and Gas Company LLC steamrolled them by refusing to negotiate in good faith on monetary compensation and the pipeline's location. Their attorneys say CNYOG has skirted Pennsylvania's eminent domain rules.

My Way News - Landowners fight eminent domain in Pa. gas field

Its take or leave it but we are coming through whether you like it or not and if your house is in the way you will be evicted and your house will be destroyed.

 

[California Girl]

I am seriously uncomfortable with the whole concept of 'eminent domain'.

 

[laughinReaper]

Eminent domain should be discontinued because it is regularly abused.

 

[zzzz]

Eminent domain should be discontinued because it is regularly abused.

I think its use is going to be expanded even more in the coming years. If you look at the legislation being passed this year in states its all about jobs. If it brings jobs then it is ok, no matter what happens. The pendulum is swinging back against all the restrictions that were enacted in the last 60 years and the individual is going to become sacrificed for the greater good. If a business needs that corner lot where your house is and it will bring in 20 jobs, you got to go!!!

 

[blastoff]

Not Really Aware...

 

[laughinReaper]

Eminent domain should be discontinued because it is regularly abused.

I think its use is going to be expanded even more in the coming years. If you look at the legislation being passed this year in states its all about jobs. If it brings jobs then it is ok, no matter what happens. The pendulum is swinging back against all the restrictions that were enacted in the last 60 years and the individual is going to become sacrificed for the greater good. If a business needs that corner lot where your house is and it will bring in 20 jobs, you got to go!!!

If eminent domain is expanded then it should be with the stipulation that any properties confiscated should be bought to match either full market value or pay off the loan the owners currently have(which ever is higher) or another property of equal or greater value to match what is owed and what the property is worth be provided for those who live there with moving expenses.

Currently we have a local case where a city want to use eminent domain to build a new school. The city wants to pay what is currently fair market value. Unfortunately the residents bought the house before the economy crapped out and the value of the house now is less than what they owe. These people can't get a new loan if the old loan isn't paid off and the money offered by the city won't cover the loan. IE 10 years ago when they bought the house, it was worth and a loan made for $250,000.00. Now since the market crashed it's only worth $175,000.00. The home owners find themselves at a loss and go from being homeowners to homeless. That's not reasonable or fair.

I had a friend to whom this happened and she and her large family not only lost the house but she never financially recovered and never got another house. The project for which it was bulldosed went south and the property has been vacant for over ten years. This is a repeat problem where I live.

I knew a woman who was evicted from her home based on eminent domain to make way for a state park. It took over 30 YEARS after the neighborhood was destroyed for the state to build anything there.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Won't happen. Fail OP.

 

[violet]

Pfizer to Leave City That Won Land-Use Case
Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesSusette Kelo's house, a landmark of sorts, was moved from the Fort Trumbull neighborhood that was seized by New London. Ms. Kelo was the losing plaintiff in a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision.

Published: November 12, 2009
From the edge of the Thames River in New London, Conn., Michael Cristofaro surveyed the empty acres where his parents’ neighborhood had stood, before it became the crux of an epic battle over eminent domain.

What Pfizer’s departure from New London, Conn., means for eminent domain battles.

Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times
Michael Cristofaro in the field in New London, Conn., where his parents lived. The city seized the land for a private “urban village” that was never built. Pfizer's complex is in the background.

City Councilman Robert M. Pero said, “I'm sure that there are people that are waiting out there to say, 'I told you so.'”
“Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”

That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, announced it would leave the city just eight years after its arrival led to a debate about urban redevelopment that rumbled through the United States Supreme Court, and reset the boundaries for governments to seize private land for commercial use.

Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.

The announcement stirred up resentment and bitterness among some local residents. They see Pfizer as a corporate carpetbagger that took public money, in the form of big tax breaks, and now wants to run.

“I’m not surprised that they’re gone,” said Susette Kelo, who moved to Groton from New London after the city took her home near Pfizer’s property. “They didn’t get what they wanted: their development, their big plan.”

Ms. Kelo lived in a small pink house in the Fort Trumbull section that was square in the sights of city and state officials who wanted to revitalize the area. The city had created the New London Development Corporation to buy up the nine-acre neighborhood and find a developer to replace it with an “urban village” that would draw shoppers and tourists to the area.

Economic development officials in Connecticut used that plan — and a package of financial incentives — to lure Pfizer to build a headquarters for its research division on 26 acres nearby. With an agreement that it would pay just one-fifth of its property taxes for the first 10 years, Pfizer spent $294 million on a 750,000-square-foot complex that opened in 2001.

By then, Ms. Kelo, the Cristofaros and several neighbors had sued the city to stop it from using its power of eminent domain to take their property. The lawsuit, Kelo v. New London, wound up at the Supreme Court in 2005 as one of the most scrutinized property-rights cases in years.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the high court ruled that it was permissible to take private property and turn it over to developers as part of a plan to bolster the local economy. Conservative justices, including Clarence Thomas, dissented. Justice Thomas called New London’s plan “a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation.”

The decision was widely criticized, and spurred lawmakers across the country to adopt statutes to prevent similar uses of eminent domain. Scott G. Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian group in Arlington, Va., said that 43 states had moved to protect private-property rights since the Kelo decision. New York and New Jersey are among the seven that have not, he said.

Mr. Bullock, who represented the landowners in New London, said Pfizer’s announcement “really shows the folly of these plans that use massive corporate welfare and abuse eminent domain for private development.”

“They oftentimes fail to live up to expectations,” he added.

For its part, Pfizer said it had no stake in the outcome of the Kelo case nor any interest in the development of the land that was acquired by eminent domain, according to a statement provided by a spokeswoman, Liz Power.

After Pfizer completed its $67 billion acquisition of Wyeth, another drug giant, in October, Ms. Power said, “We had a lot of real estate that we had to make strategic decisions about.” She said Pfizer would try to sell or lease its buildings in New London and would “continue to pay our taxes to the city as scheduled.”

The complex is currently assessed at $220 million, said Robert M. Pero, a city councilman who is scheduled to become mayor next month. The company pays tax on 20 percent of that value and the state pays an additional 40 percent, Mr. Pero said. That arrangement is scheduled to end in 2011, around the time Pfizer, which is currently the city’s biggest taxpayer, expects to complete its withdrawal.

“Basically, our economy lost a thousand jobs, but we still have a building,” Mr. Pero said. Then again, he added, “I don’t know who’s going to be looking for a building like that in this economy.”

Some residents said they expected Pfizer to seek a revaluation of its buildings if they wind up vacant in two years; Ms. Power declined to comment.

Mr. Pero said that he was offended that Pfizer did not notify city officials about the decision before Monday or give them a chance to argue against it or even fully understand it. But he said he did not regret the decisions he and other elected officials had made to bring Pfizer to New London for what they had hoped would be a long and fruitful stay.

“I’m sure that there are people that are waiting out there to say, ‘I told you so,’ ” Mr. Pero said. “I don’t know that even today you can say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

But Mr. Cristofaro and Ms. Kelo both said just that.

Ms. Kelo, a nurse who works in New London and Norwich, Conn., said she was still bitter about the loss of her house, which she sold for $1 to Avner Gregory, a preservationist. Mr. Gregory dismantled the house and moved it across town. It now stands as a bright-pink symbol of the divisive dispute that drew so much attention to New London.

“In all honesty, I’m not happy about what happened to me,” Ms. Kelo said. But, she added, “With 43 states changing their laws, in that sense I feel we did some good for people across the country.”

Pfizer and 1,400 Jobs to Leave New London, Connecticut - NYTimes.com

 

[JakeStarkey]

Kelo is not applicable to the pipe line case. Nebraska, for instance, certainly would never condone the use of eminent domain in that matter.

OP must make connections, not just assertions.

 

[zzzz]

A pipeline from Canada is interstate commerce and as such would fall under Federal rules and regulations in addition to crossing into another country, hence the State Departments involvement.

''The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' This is a tacit recognition of a preexisting power to take private property for public use, rather than a grant of new power.'' 160 Eminent domain ''appertains to every independent government. It requires no constitutional recognition; it is an attribute of sovereignty.'' 161 In the early years of the nation the federal power of eminent domain lay dormant, 162 and it was not until 1876 that its existence was recognized by the Supreme Court. In Kohl v. United States 163 any doubts were laid to rest, as the Court affirmed that the power was as necessary to the existence of the National Government as it was to the existence of any State. The federal power of eminent domain is, of course, limited by the grants of power in the Constitution, so that property may only be taken for the effectuation of a granted power, 164 but once this is conceded the ambit of national powers is so wide- ranging that vast numbers of objects may be effected. 165 This prerogative of the National Government can neither be enlarged nor diminished by a State. 166 Whenever lands in a State are needed for a public purpose, Congress may authorize that they be taken, either by proceedings in the courts of the State, with its consent, or by proceedings in the courts of the United States, with or without any consent or concurrent act of the State. 167

''Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment,'' the power of eminent domain of state governments ''was unrestrained by any federal authority.'' 168 The just compensation provision of the Fifth Amendment did not apply to the States, 169 and at first the contention that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment afforded property owners the same measure of protection against the States as the Fifth Amendment did against the Federal Government was rejected.

The Supreme Court has approved generally the widespread use of the power of eminent domain by federal and state governments in conjunction with private companies to facilitate urban renewal, destruction of slums, erection of low-cost housing in place of deteriorated housing, and the promotion of aesthetic values as well as economic ones. In Berman v. Parker, 186 a unanimous Court ob served: ''The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled.'' For ''public use,'' then, it may well be that ''public interest'' or ''public welfare'' is the more correct phrase. Berman was applied in Hawaii Housing Auth. v. Midkiff, 187 upholding the Hawaii Land Reform Act as a ''rational'' effort to ''correct deficiencies in the market determined by the state legislature to be attributable to land oligopoly.'' Direct transfer of land from lessors to lessees was permissible, the Court held, there being no requirement ''that government possess and use property at some point during a taking.'' 188 ''The 'public use' requirement is . . . coterminous with the scope of a sovereign's police powers,'' the Court concluded.

FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Fifth Amendment: Annotations pg. 14 of 16

 

[JakeStarkey]

The state department and the department of interior could get involved, but the feds will bow to the various states on this one. Kelo will not be an issue whatsoever.