{"id":26565,"date":"2013-04-17T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T11:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=26565"},"modified":"2013-04-17T09:42:38","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T14:42:38","slug":"landowners-and-pipelines-look-to-legislature-for-eminent-domain-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2013\/04\/17\/landowners-and-pipelines-look-to-legislature-for-eminent-domain-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Landowners and Pipelines Look to Legislature for Eminent Domain Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Terrence Henry\/StateImpact Texas<\/p>\n

The Keystone XL pipeline under construction in East Texas. The state legislature is considering plans to change how pipelines use eminent domain in the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would take heavy crude oil from sand pits in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas, is getting new scrutiny after an oil spill from another pipeline in Arkansas<\/a> carrying that same kind of heavy oil.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups say that allowing the Keystone XL pipeline<\/a>, owned and operated by the pipeline company TransCanada<\/a>, will harm the climate and risk severe spills<\/a>, while the oil industry says pipelines are the safest way to move the fuel<\/a>, and that oil will help the economy and national security. The President\u2019s getting pressure from both sides to decide whether or not to allow the pipeline to cross the Canadian border. But with our without presidential approval, the Keystone XL pipeline is coming to Texas, where it has brought another issue into the spotlight: property rights in an industry-friendly state.<\/p>\n\n

“For Texas, in particular, we\u2019re going forward with the Gulf Coast project<\/a>,\u201d Corey Goulet<\/a>, TransCanada\u2019s Vice President for the Keystone Pipeline project, told StateImpact Texas.\u00a0That section of the pipeline will run from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf coast, as part of the existing Keystone pipeline<\/a> that already goes from Oklahoma to Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re about half complete with that construction. We think we\u2019ll be done — what we call mechanically complete — by the fall of this year,” Goulet said. “We\u2019ll start to introduce oil into the pipeline. And by the end of the year we hope to be in full service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once that\u2019s up and running, hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of oil sands will flow through Texas. But a big issue in Texas is how\u00a0these pipelines are being routed through the state. Over the last few years, as oil and gas exploration has grown here and in other parts of the continent, so has the demand for pipelines, which in Texas will inevitably go through private land. And some Texas landowners, like Julia Trigg Crawford, a farmer in Northeast Texas, are not happy about it.<\/p>\n

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