I do understand the eminent domain rule. And I do support it in some situations. If you are going to build a new city hall for example and you have vacant lots, I can see Eminent Domain coming into play. I can see Eminent Domain being used in a metropolitan area where the buildings are rundown and look like they would fall down except for the boards over the window and door openings. But to allow big business, a foreign company at that, to declare Eminent Domain to build a pipeline on land that has a thriving business on it seems to be going a bit too far. And the real surreal thing is that it is in the State of Texas where this Eminent Domain clause is being challenged.
President Obama may have nixed a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, but that hasn’t stopped the Canadian company that wants to build the 1,660-mile structure from going to court to force the cooperation of landowners who don’t want it crossing their land.
The issue erupted into a noisy protest Friday in Paris, Texas, where farm manager Julia Trigg Crawford has sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the company, TransCanada, from beginning any construction or digging on her property until issues of legal jurisdiction are decided.
TransCanada has sought to dissolve a restraining order granted a week ago, saying it is legally entitled to pursue eminent domain proceedings along the proposed pipeline route under existing state and federal laws—though it says it has no plans to begin any construction.
The issue has brought conservative tea party groups out rallying alongside environmentalists opposed to tar sands oil production, united behind Crawford’s attempt to keep the pipeline from crossing her 600-acre farm in the town of Direct, near Paris, where she fears it could contaminate the creek that irrigates her fields and damage Native American burial artifacts.
You should know that damaging Native American burial artifacts doesn’t mean spit to conservatives. And contaminating food? Please. The GOP wants to eliminate the Food and Drug Administration. You know, the people that perform food safety. It doesn’t matter to them if you eat radiated spinach or eggs that contain e-coli.
“Protect Texas landowners over foreign tar sands pipelines,” said many of the signs being marched around outside the Lamar County Courthouse. At least 75 citizens — conservative property rights advocates, gray-haired landowners, environmental activists and even some Occupy protesters — filled the small courtroom.
“I never got a chance to go before a judge and say, ‘Judge, I don’t want to give them my land,’ ” Crawford said in an interview. “Not only do I think the landowners are being bullied, but now they’re saying they want to have the right to be able to start construction. And they don’t even have a permit!”
Despite TransCanada’s assertion that it does not intend to start construction or trenching while Congress and the Obama administration make a final decision on its international permit to ship oil into the U.S., the company has quietly continued acquiring easements for the $7-billion project with landowners such as Crawford, who are challenging them.
Well, at least the conservative property rights advocates were there. Now if they could get through to some of the jackasses of the GOP sitting in Washington looking down their nose at us and get them to understand that taking away private property to give to corporations is far down that hill of Socialism that the GOP never even wants to see, we would be making progress. Because you are choosing the winner of the conflict. Transcanada who even 5 years ago didn’t have any inclination that they wanted this particular piece of land would be the winner. Julia Trigg Crawford would be the loser, which would be chosen by the government because of their greed. And the funny thing is that Transcanada has said that they aren’t starting construction yet, but they want the land. Something here doesn’t smell right. Why do you need the land until you are given the clearance by the Administration to build your pipeline? Oh yeah, leverage. It would be nice for the GOP, with a straight face, to say that the President is hurting oil manufacturing because of politics. They would point to the fact that Transcanada has a route in mind that they own all the land for and that it would be a private company working on their own land to bring the reserves of oil to the refineries and that it would drive down the price of oil.
Two arguments against that reasoning. The first is that we trample on the rights of many people in order for Transcanada to have all that land. Eminent Domain should not be used to allow a private company to be judged a winner over regular everyday Americans. In fact, it should be that only public concerns have right to Eminent Domain. The property seized should stay in Public hands for at the minimum of 10 years and that the public entity that did take the property utilizes it in entirity by itself. No partnerships with private companies or leasing the property to somebody. You take it, you use it for the public.
The second argument is more compelling than the first. Refining capacity. Go back a few years when oil company CEOs testified before congress. Not a single one of them, when asked, had any plans to open more refineries. Why is that? Because they don’t want oil prices to go lower. And I understand that in business. You want to maximize your profits. And while that is true, also remember what the oil companies have said when sudden price shocks hit gas prices. It is usually that the refineries had a problem and that they are allo at capacity. I understand that problems do arise. So that is a legitimate argument. However that does leave a nagging problem for me at least. If the refining capacity is at or near 100%, how are we going to refine 500,000 more barrels of oil per day? The argument that we will not ship crude from other companies doesn’t hold water. Why would Exxon decide to allow their refinery to refine oil coming from the Transcanada pipeline and not refine the crude coming from their own wells in Africa or the Middle East? The answer is that they won’t unless they are making more money than they can get refining their own crude. So the oil companies will continue to ship their unrefined crude to America from overseas to keep their costs down. And if the oil companies aren’t going to stop their importing of crude and are not going to build more refineries, then where does the increased production of crude go? It gets shipped overseas to other refineries. And those other refineries will continue to supply other countries with oil. Where does America benefit from that? It doesn’t.
Transcanada has been playing American politicians as patsies and been playing them rather well. The numbers and the oil companies themselves know that the argument being put forth by our politicians are at the very least dubious at best, if not straight out and out lies. The American politicians, including some members of the Democratic party, have been suckered. This is not going to work for our benefit. The reason that Transcanada wants that route to the Gulf Coast is to minimize their costs. Imagine having to construct the facilities for oil transport and reception in British Columbia. It would be a massive undertaking. Instead if you can reduce your costs by half going to Texas or Louisiana by utilizing other’s discarded or unused facilities, why not try and get the pipeline to go there? And the best part if you are Transcanada is that you have the GOP do your dirty work and argue that America needs this pipeline because it will either go to America or China. And we all know that China cannot be trusted. Nothing like being screwed and tattooed.
