Private Property Before Profits
Imagine your neighbor wanted to sell water to someone on the other side of your land. Now imagine that neighbor wanted to build a pipe across your land to get to his customer. Maybe your neighbor wanted the pipe to run through your house, or split your farm in two where you could not easily farm around it. If you’re OK with that, you’d meet with your neighbor and negotiate fair compensation. That’s how deals are supposed to work. But what if you’re not willing to allow your neighbor to cross your property? How would you feel if the neighbor said you can’t stop him? He’s coming through, regardless. I suspect you wouldn’t think that was fair.
Ordinary people can’t force their neighbors to allow access to their land. That’s not necessarily true of large corporations, though. Through a process called eminent domain, large corporations can sometimes take private land when doing so serves a public benefit. This brings us to the Grain Belt Express and Senate Bill 597.
For the past six years or so, developers have been trying to build a giant power line across northern Missouri. The proposed Grain Belt Express line would carry 4,000 megawatts of wind-generated DC electricity from southwest Kansas to a converter station near the Illinois-Indiana border. From there, the electricity would be sold to retail customers on the East Coast. The massive power line – the largest ever built in Missouri – would cross eight counties and span the entire width of the state. As originally planned, the 800-mile power line was not actually supposed to provide electricity to a single end-use consumer in Missouri. It was just passing through.
Essential to the project’s success was approval by Missouri’s Public Service Commission, which regulates public utilities in the state. They rejected the idea twice. In order to sway regulators to take another look at the proposal, the developers of the Grain Belt Express line promised to siphon off some power and sell it to small towns in Missouri. Last year, the PSC relented and approved the revised plan.
Once the commission determined the project qualified as a public utility, the developers were granted the power of eminent domain. They could now seize land “for the public good.” As many as 700 Missouri landowners could be directly impacted by this decision. I believe many of the owners of farms and homes in the path of the Grain Belt Express Line do not want an enormous power line built across their property. They may have no choice. Through the power of eminent domain, Invenergy, a company that last year purchased the once-stalled power line project, will be able to take easements by force.
Senate Bill 587, which I sponsored, will stop the taking of private property for the purpose of private profit. Simply put, this legislation denies the power of eminent domain to utilities that do not serve end-use customers in Missouri. In my opinion, a big corporation wanting to make money by selling Kansas wind power to East Coast consumers should not justify taking private property from Missouri landowners.
During testimony on my legislation, Invenergy claimed it does not intend to rely on eminent domain to complete this project. Other witnesses, some familiar with negotiations in the counties affected, told the committee that only a few dozen easement agreements have been signed in the past six years. The vast majority of landowners have not agreed to the project. Is it ever truly a good-faith negation when one party holds all the cards? Just the threat of eminent domain could cause a landowner to settle for less than they’re entitled. In the end, they know they’re going to lose their land, no matter what.
The proponents of the Grain Belt Express line also say Missouri consumers will save money on the electricity sold to municipal utilities in our state. Who knows? There’s no guarantee any savings will ever be passed onto consumers. Even if the savings materialize, I believe the benefit to individual consumers could just be a few dollars each month. Is that reason enough to give private developers free reign to take private property from Missourians?
Whether there are benefits to the project is a moot point to me, considering the freedom my constituents and residents of the entire state would have to give up. I’m concerned about private property rights and protecting Missouri residents from being displaced from their land to line the pockets of a corporation.
If an out-of-state developer can work its way across north Missouri for this project, what’s to stop the next developer from building another line across yours? This project is happening in a different part of the state from where I live and away from the district I represent. Next time, it could easily be one of my constituents that loses their property to a private company. I am going to fight to keep that from happening. I will side with our constituents every time.
It’s my honor to serve as your senator for the 16th District. If you have questions or need any assistance, please call my office at 573-751-5713 or log onto my webpage at https://www.senate.mo.gov/brown for more information.