Keystone Pipeline.... Common Carrier?
 

A few months ago there was a long discussion here of the Keystone Pipeline and how it is taking land from folks in East Texas through the power of Eminent Domain. My position on this, which stems from years of pipeline operations, was that the law in Texas was clear. Pipelines that are Common Carriers have Eminent Domaine. By the way... That is still the case in Texas.

But one guy has challenged this in court by claiming that Keystone is not a Common Carrier. So far he has won in every case and now a court is asking Keystone to prove their line deserves CC status.

This is no small deal. The pipelines I was involved with would transport crude or refined products for anyone who had the money to pay the transportation charges. After all, we made money by transporting stuff, so if you had oil to transport we wanted to be your go to guys. This made us, legally, a Common Carrier just like a truck line. We were owned by a major oil company, and we shipped a lot of their oil, but they did not get moved up the list because of it. We sold to the highest bidder and made a ton of money doing so.

At least one commentator on here has some property involved in this route. Therefore an article in today's Houston Chronicle should be of interest to them.

(A link is now posted below. I commented I did not know how to do this and Elchivito provided instructions on how this is accomplished. Thanks!)

And as an aside..... A lot of folks have whined about how important this line is to the US and blah, blah, blah, and my response to this has always been that yes, there is opposition to the line, but everyone would be shocked to see who was really trying to stop this. I get into this part of the world now and then, and you don't meet a lot of Obama voters there.

And from what the latest court has found those trying to stop it might have just found a way to do so.

Pooka

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Fuel Fix » Keystone fails Texas common-carrier test, landowners say

Hey! It worked!

Thanks. I always enjoy it when I learn something.

Thanks VERY much for posting this Pooka! If they determine that they cannot take it by Immenent Domain, I woul love to into sue them to dig up the pipe and restore the land as it was. Of course they can't put back 180+ trees.

The guy that stood up to them is my hero.

You're right Pooka, I'm no Obama supporter, but I darn sure didn't want these thieves coming through my place. I could write volumes about my experience with this bunch of crooks.

When I saw this I thought I needed to get this to you as quickly as possible. If there had been no discussion of this earlier I would have never known of your interests, and I was really glad I was able to get this info to you.

Interestingly, over here if such a project removes trees, they have to plant & care for 30 trees until they are a few years old, for every tree removed.

It's a whole 'nuther country.

Jeez people, EMINENT DOMAIN....

That's the tool but does it apply to a privately owned pipeline that services a few customers?

(Lawyers get rich)

Jerry Jones had homes condemned under eminent domain so he could build Cowboy stadium. People were forced out of their homesteads. I think there was a court case in the northeast (maybe Supreme Court) that said eminent domain is no longer used only by government entities, but private parties can as well. The rationale is increased tax revenue, which would also apply to a pipeline.

As a rule, pipeline companies seeking right of ways treat surface owners right. They know the value of good blood between people and how it makes everybody lives much easier. But some people are stubborn no matter what.

Some court will have to decide the big picture cost/benefits of crossing this guys land. I bet in the end when the money gets big enough, he will cave.

Now this depends on how far back you stand. It looks like it carries a product owned by one party, but as a small aside, most pipelines operate this way because they actually buy the product from others. So the companies that sold oil to the pipeline benefit. And if you supply more oil to the system as whole, prices to consumers go down. Now as you can see that is a different issue than the definition of common carrier.

The Denbury case is different. They want to transport CO2 from Jackson Dome in Mississippi (which they own) to the Conroe field north of Houston for purposes of an EOR flood. The increased oil production will benefit them, arguably again creating more supply for the entire system. I think the physical size of the legal block is not tremendous, they could just go around that guys land.

That was the boneheaded case in Rhode Island. Still makes be think unflatteringly of the Supremes.

I am with you on that

You talking about Kelo v. City Of New London in CT?

In that case, although the land was developed by a private firm, the transfer of property from private citizens to the private firm was done by the city of New London.

To the best of my knowledge, private people/corporations have no right to eminent domain.

Kelo v. City of New London, Case citation|545 U.S. 469 (2005)[1], was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further economic development. The case arose from the condemnation by New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real property so that it could be used as part of a comprehensive redevelopment plan. The Court held in a 5-4 decision that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic growth qualified such redevelopment plans as a permissible "public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The decision was widely criticized by American politicians and the general public. Many members of the general public viewed the outcome as a gross violation of property rights and as a misinterpretation of the Fifth Amendment, the consequence of which would be to benefit large corporations at the expense of individual homeowners and local communities. Most in the legal profession construe the public's outrage as being directed not at the interpretation of legal principles involved in the case, but at the broad moral principles of the general outcome.[2]