How Coincidental: Several Pipeline Stories Today -- Now This

I have posted several notes on pipelines this morning.

Now, Don alerts me to this Bloomberg story: Land Battles Rise as U.S. Eyes 450,000 Miles of New Pipe.

Typically, pipeline companies negotiate 95 percent of right-of-way agreements, Santa said. About 5 percent require some type of court proceeding, in which the company invokes its eminent domain power and asks a court to set a fair price for the land it needs.

Because eminent domain laws vary from state to state, no central clearing house tracks the number of eminent domain cases.

Private companies have had eminent domain power since at least the 1800s. Most state and federal law allows private property to be taken for “common carriers,” meaning projects that serve the public by carrying power or providing transportation for all customers.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission holds hearings to determine the routes for interstate gas pipelines. Most other eminent domain disputes, including disputed interstate oil and liquids pipelines, are handled in local courts under state law.

The headline says "450,00 miles of new pipe."

In fact, much of the story has to to with above-ground transmission lines for wind farms. 

A bit of irony: the "political correctness of renewable energy" requiring new transmission corridors will make it easier (legally) for necessary pipeline easements. The federal government and, often, state governments, were going to rule in favor of the energy companies building wind farms that needed new transmission corridors, overriding interests of private landowners.