Senator Johnson Says No to Eminent Domain for TransCanada

Cross-posted at KELOLand.com!

Hooray for Senator Tim Johnson, the only member of South Dakota's Congressional delegation to say flat-out that he does not support the use of eminent domain by TransCanada to obtain easements for its Keystone pipeline.

The Aberdeen American News sent six questions to Senator Johnson, Senator Thune, and Representative Herseth-Sandlin pertaining to TransCanada's proposed pipeline. Question 6: "Do you support the use of eminent domain to acquire needed easements from landowners who oppose the pipeline crossing their property?" In today's AAN ["S.D. Congressional Delegation Responses to Questions About TransCanada's Keystone Pipeline," Aberdeen American News, 2008.01.20], Senator Johnson provides this very succinct, unqualified answer:

No. I do not support the use of eminent domain to acquire easements for this project.

Landowners take note: you have at least one friend in Washington.

Unfortunately, you appear to have only that one clear friend in Washington. Here's Representative Herseth-Sandlin's rather typical gentle fence-riding:

The power of eminent domain for any project must be used sparingly. We have had experience across South Dakota with construction of regional water systems. This process has demonstrated easements can be obtained through mutual agreement rather than through condemnation and courts. I have been concerned by reports that TransCanada was overly quick to threaten legal action and force landowners to incur legal fees and have raised this issue with company officials, urging them to deal fairly with landowners.

That said, pipelines are the most efficient, safe way to transport volatile liquid fuel around the country. Our highway and rail system alone would not have the capacity to transport the amount of fuel needed to power this country, nor could it do so as safely as a pipeline. Denial of eminent domain authority on a project like this could doom all such projects to failure and impair the development of vital infrastructure.

She's concerned, but pipelines are great. No help for South Dakotans there.

Senator Thune's response was worse. His folks couldn't even take the time to respond directly to AAN's questionnaire (which surprises me: Thune's man Lauck should have been able to crank out some old-fashioned policy-debate line-by-line in no time). His statement doesn't say a word about eminent domain. He just says the project is great, since it will help free our country from Middle East oil:

At almost $100 per barrel, our dependence on oil from the Middle East is harming our national and economic security. It is important that our nation take reasonable steps to displace this oil with homegrown renewable fuel, domestically produced petroleum, and petroleum imports from our friends and neighbors in North America. From the Keystone pipeline to ethanol and biodiesel plants, South Dakota has an important role to play in freeing our country from Middle East oil.

Um, note to Thune and everyone else: Alberta's tar sands will not lower our imports from the Middle East one drop:

To many, Canada is America’s greatest hope to continue happy motoring for a while longer. They look longingly at those billions of barrels of “oil” trapped in the Alberta tar sands and assume that it will soon be flowing south in whatever amounts we desire. This is unlikely to happen for extracting “oil” from Alberta is turning the place into one of the greatest environmental disasters on earth. While production from the Alberta sands will likely continue for centuries, it will never reach the level to replace even a fraction of the 13 million barrels of imports the U.S. requires each day. It will not be long before the Canadian people start thinking about their grandchildren and exports will slow [Tom Whipple, "The Peak Oil Crisis: Issues," Falls Church (VA) News-Press, 2007.12.20].

The TransCanada pipeline won't replace Arab oil; it will only fuel our ever-increasing consumption. The Canadians will violate our property rights, tear up our farm fields, leak into our aquifers, and Osama's buddies and financiers will still be making money off America. We will still have ships in the Persian Gulf and troops on the ground in Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq.

Perhaps Senator Johnson recognizes exactly this fallacy in the "TransCanada means no more Arab oil" thinking. The pipeline feeds greed. If we pursued energy conservation and real alternatives, we wouldn't need to sacrifice our land rights and environmental security.

Senator Johnson is the only South Dakota politician I've heard yet say anything about protecting South Dakota landowners' rights against TransCanada and any other foreign corporation that pretends just to be doing what's "Good for America, Good for South South Dakota." Kudos, Senator Johnson. Now tell your colleagues to get with the program.

Update 11:35 CST: But don't bother calling Governor Rounds's office. In his frontpager on the eminent domain issue, AAN's Scott Waltman notes that calls to the governor for comment on the issue were not returned. Read that article, with a good summary of the issues surrounding eminent domain here: Scott Waltman, "Your Land or Their Land?," Aberdeen American News, 2008.01.20.