The Keystone Fight Is Uniting Tea
Partiers With Environmentalists
Brian
Beutler February 27, 2012
In Washington,
DC, the fight over the proposed
Keystone XL oil pipeline mostly divides common enemies: Republicans and
Democrats; environmentalists and fossil fuel interests; big business and the
federal bureaucracy.
But though the project exists in a state of suspended
animation, TransCanada — the company that wants to
connect the tar sands in Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico — is preparing to build anyhow. In
particular, on the portion of the pipeline that would link Nebraska
to Texas, TransCanada has threatened to use disputed eminent domain
powers to condemn privately held land, over the owners’ objections. And that’s
creating unusual allies — Occupiers, Tea Partiers, environmentalists,
individualists — united to stop TransCanada from
threatening water supplies, ancient artifacts, and people’s basic property
rights.
In 2007 TransCanada’s agents at
Universal Field Services approached Randy Thompson, 64, of Martell, NE,
asking to survey his farm land. Thompson assented at first, under the
assumption that he’d have final say over whether a Canadian company would be allowed
to build anything on his property.
“Once I found out a little bit more about what was going
on, I rescinded that permission,” Thompson told TPM by phone on Sunday. “[W]e
did meet with them once, maybe a couple times. We told them, you don’t have a permit
yet, so we absolutely do not want this thing on our property. So until you
actually get a permit we have no reason to have any further discussion about
this. They continually called me, like once a month or whenever they felt like
it. Kept the pressure on us. Made us
an offer, $9000. Whatever the offer was, we just don’t want the damn
thing on our property.”
That’s when TransCanada really
stepped up the pressure.
“In July 2010, we got a written letter from TransCanada, they told us if you don’t accept this within
30 days, we’re going to immediately start eminent domain proceedings against
you,” Thompson said. “They didn’t say anything about a permit. I tried to
contact the Governor’s office. All I got back was a form letter talking about
the pipeline.”
It turns out TransCanada used
the same approach with many other landowners — with some success. “It was
pretty effective, it kinda scares the hell out of
you,” Thompson said.
A TransCanada letter to another
owner - who requested anonymity - reads, “This letter is Keystone’s final
offer, and it will remain open for one month after the date of this letter or
until you reject it. We believe the amount of the offer [$5,280.00] is a
premium price for your property. Keystone’s offer is high because the company
prefers to acquire this property through negotiation and to avoid litigation
and its associated delays and debts.”
The letter goes on, “While we hope to acquire this
property through negotiation, if we are unable to do so we will be forced to
invoke the power of eminent domain and will initiate condemnation proceedings
against this property promptly after the expiration of this one month period.”
Julia Trigg Crawford, 53, of Lamar County, TX faced
similar pressure. On Friday, a judge voided a temporary restraining order she’d
secured against TransCanada on the grounds that the
company is threatening to build the pipeline across a portion of her 600 acre
property that archaeological authorities say is teeming with Caddo nation
artifacts. It also threatens a creek she uses to irrigate her land and wells
her family uses for drinking water.
“I do not want my place to be a guinea pig on this,” she
told my by telephone. Those practical concerns lay atop a more fundamental
question of whether a for-profit company should be able to seize private land
for profit.
“I’m looking out my window every hour,” Crawford said.
“While they don’t have a permit to build anything, they have the right to start
construction…. A foreign for profit pipeline was allowed to condemn my land
without my being allowed to talk to a judge.”
Thompson described himself as a conservative guy who
supported Republicans, but had never been involved in politics beyond
exercising the basic right to vote. Crawford calls herself a “political
agnostic” who eschewed activism until TransCanada
came into her life. But they, along with others in their position, and
sympathizers have come together, with the help of Bold Nebraska activist Jane Kleeb,
who became involved in the Keystone fight in May 2010, after landowners raised
concerns at a State Department hearing on the pipeline.
“They actually don’t have eminent domain authority in Nebraska until they have
their permits,” she explained in a phone interview. “It would have been fair
for TransCanada to say once we have a permit we could
take you to court for eminent domain. Letting landowners know that they could
face eminent domain proceedings is one thing…but they were just bullying these
landowners.”
The result: protests in Paris, Texas against the pipeline,
on Crawford’s behalf.
“You could check off 20 different kinds of boxes,
politically, professionally, temperamentally,” Crawford said. “We had
Occupiers, Tea Partiers. This is about rights as a landowner.”
Farmers on the proposed route likely wouldn’t face these
threats were it not for the 2005 case Kelo v. City of
New London in which the Supreme Court, divided 5-4, ruled that eminent domain
powers extend to the transfer of land from one private owner to another, if
that action increases economic development.
The ruling outraged conservatives and libertarians. The
effect of it today is to place people like Randy Thompson on an unfamiliar side
of the divide between conservatives and environmentalists; and business and
liberal political activists. He even testified this month against TransCanada as a witness for Henry Waxman’s minority
on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“I’m a little ashamed to say that maybe if it hadn’t come
across our land, I wouldn’t have gotten involved,” he told me. “I’ve gained a
great deal of respect for people who do care about our environment I’ve become
much more aware of environmental issues. I have to admire them for being
concerned about our environment.”
“Republicans,” he said, by contrast, “could give a rats ass about the people out here.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/keystone-opposition-creates-strange-bedfellows-in-rural-america.php
***************************
Woman fights eminent domain case from TransCanda
pipeline
KYTX By Jeff Wright -
email (KYTX) - Posted: Feb 27,
2012:
(KYTX) - The Northeast Texas
landowner who's sewing TransCanada over their
decision to take her land through eminent domain tells CBS 19 the battle's not
over. She had a restraining order against the company but that's gone.
A judge up in the Paris area dissolved the restraining
order Friday, which means TransCanada could start
building the Keystone XL pipeline on that land whenever they want.
Julia Trigg Crawford, the land owner, tells us they wanted
to have control of the property by March 1st, but she doesn't know whether anything
will happen.
She got that restraining order a few weeks ago based on a
very limited argument about the value of native-American Caddo artifacts
on the land.
She will get to make those arguments when she goes back to
court.
Crawford tells us she'll be relying on a recent Texas Supreme Court
decision in another pipeline case from August of last year.
That case revolved around how companies go about getting
eminent domain authority, which is apparently as simple as checking a box on an
application with the state railroad commission.
Crawford goes back to court on April 19th. Her lawsuit will
go to a jury on April 30th.
http://www.cbs19.tv/story/17022733/woman-plans