{"id":15404,"date":"2012-07-25T11:43:25","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T16:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=15404"},"modified":"2012-07-27T09:12:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T14:12:48","slug":"why-changes-to-eminent-domain-in-texas-may-be-imminent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/25\/why-changes-to-eminent-domain-in-texas-may-be-imminent\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Changes to Eminent Domain in Texas May Be Imminent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scott Olson\/Getty Images<\/p>

The remains of a structure on the Gulf shore Galveston, Texas. Hurricane Ike changed the landscape of the region in September 2008.<\/p><\/div>\n

Texans certainly have a love for private property.\u00a095 percent of Texas land<\/a>\u00a0is privately owned. But earlier this week the state house\u00a0Committee of Land and Resource Management<\/a> heard invited testimony on a couple of situations that may call for Texas to take over a little more land by eminent domain.<\/p>\n

Two Texas Supreme Court cases recently took on the eminent domain issues. In both cases, the Court ruled in favor of the property owners.\u00a0 The first, Severance v. Patterson<\/em><\/a>, considered beach front property and the Open Beaches Act<\/a>, while the second, Texas Rice Lands v. Denbury Green Pipeline<\/em><\/a>, looked into the form oil and gas companies fill out in order to condemn Texans’ private property for their pipelines.<\/p>\n

The second case poses a more pertinent challenge for Texas representatives. Representative Rene Oliveira<\/a>, chairman of the Land and Resource Management committee, says they must find a balance between landowner rights and the needs of the oil and gas industry. Currently, companies are required only to fill out a simple form, checking a box<\/a> that says they’ll be “common carriers,” meaning they’ll allow other companies to use their pipelines.<\/p>\n

“Fortunately, we haven’t had any, it appears, fly-by-night people getting common carrier status out there and taking advantage of that,” says Oliveira. “The testimony that we had that some landowners have 30, 40, 50 pipelines across their property, that’s something we also need to be looking at. If you’re going to be a common carrier, you should be out for hire and be able to ship other people’s product as well, especially when we’re talking about natural gas, CO2<\/sub>, and oil.”<\/p>\n

Both landowners and gas companies are unhappy with the eminent domain process<\/a>. Phil Gamble is a representative of the Gas Processors Association<\/a>. He told the committee that getting the required permits is too painstaking for his clients. A line one of his clients wants to build is about 700 miles long. \u201cIt\u2019s going to go through twenty-three counties,\u201d says Gamble. \u201cIt\u2019s not inconceivable that you could get different decisions from different courts along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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