Keystone Pipeline Sparks Property Rights Backlash
As the White House and Congress battle it out over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, the Canadian company that wants to build it is still using its land-seizure powers to get property easements for the ambitious project.
And it’s ruffling some feathers in a politically conservative patch of Texas.
Several landowners along the proposed pipeline route say TransCanada has bullied them into selling their property by asserting “eminent domain” authority, the same power that governments use to seize land for highways and other public infrastructure projects. A property rights coalition tracking the condemnation proceedings has uncovered at least 89 ...
Comments (22)
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Nope, sure doesn't.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Must ... support ... president ... must ... create ... "controversy" ... must ... report ... "facts"
Don McGovern via Texas Tribune on Facebook
unbelievable...amazing article...wake up Texas
Zackary Scott Dragoo via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Need to secede
Steve Olafson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why doesn't somebody build a refinery near Cushing, Okla.? There's nothing much there but a drug/alcohol dry out facility and a Wal-Mart and such. This was an interesting story. Good show, Mr. Root.
Alicia Butler via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Dave Mundy, did you even read the article? This is not a partisan problem. There are serious, basic concerns about how the land for this project is being obtained. If the land was being gathered up to preserve the habitat of some endangered species, no doubt you would be up in arms...
Cliff Duhon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This type of oil ruins everything it touches, the refinery, the ships that might transport it etc. When running distilations or viscosities in the lab we know that it will ruin our equipment. The stain stays on the glassware. Toulene and benzene will not clean it off. You have to have a dedicated refinery that ran just this stuff. If you ship it the stain stays in the compartments. Very few light ends for gasoline. Tears up the land where they mine it. If the pipeline leaks it solidifies on the ground and the only way to clean it up is to dig up the earth. Heavan help us if it gets in the water table or rivers.
jpt51
Congratulations to all Republicans for blindly following Rick Perry's promise to protect your rights. “Private ownership of property always has been, and I would suggest always will be, part of the pursuit of happiness.”
Yep it's true, unless you're one of Perry's crony pals who own him and the horse he road into town on....
You've been had again Texas! Open your eyes!
Candace Manges Duval via Texas Tribune on Facebook
and it's not "IF" but when....
Jalapeno Schwartz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
With crooks like Cornyn Perry and Dewhurst anything is possible
Rudy Gonzales
Land-Seizure process to get land! Sounds like the "Trans-Texas Perry-Bacle" to me. Ruffle feathers some more and Perry could be hung from the closest tree. Landowners have already been bullied? Who was the "Tip of the Spear" on this issue? Was I Perry? Her words: “A foreign-owned, for-profit, nonpermitted pipeline has taken a Texan’s land. Doesn’t sound right, does it?” It is scary how rich politicians can get their way through intimidation, but that's what happen in a one-party state. On top of this issue here in Texas, there's Santorum would like to sell off the grand Canyon where these lands would then end up in Big Oil's or Big Coal's hand and be ripped apart for money. Pristine lands would become Romney styled fodder. Bought up, torn apart and sold off in pieces so one person or company could get rich at the expense of the everyday Joe. That sucks! I'll bet $10,000.00 dollars, there's big money behind this venture.
wamintz
I don't think this is true: "Once the segment was complete, it could carry as much as 830 million barrels of oil a day to refinery row." We only consume 20 million barrels per day, and not all of it goes through Cushing.
Santos H. Villarreal via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sometimes you reap what you sow...How many of those conservative land owners voted in a republican to represent them. Republican State (TX) supports big business ventures...Conservatives vote in Republicans.. you voted in pro big business..Article event states republicans supporting this cause...Hopefully you can get the same people you voted in on your side to stop this...but you wouldn't dare vote democrat now would you. Is Obama now the savior of Texas Property Rights Owners..WOW.....
namoyer
If the TX RR Commission had any sense and ballz, they'd do what the courts have ruled, and send those Canadian Tar Sands terrorists back across the border! Just waiting for Pecos Perry to do his TransTX Corridor number for these furriners...
Neil Moyer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Gulf Coast coking refineries love this stuff; willing to pay more than discounted price Canadians are taking now; why do you think they want it to the Gulf Coast; of course, Aramco will be shoving their hvy sour crude to greatly expanded Motiva refinery in PA; just making more distillates for Europeans...
BiffTannen
Why do you keep asking that crank Medina for her opinions? You're just encouraging her.
Dale Curry
So, let's recap. Perry and the GOP/tparty fanatics are all for private property rights until the big oil company makes sizable contributions then screw private property rights. Got it!
gypsy314 ne
The land owners see money and want to try and take advantage of the ordeal. There are always these types that enough is never enough they will always scam for more. Other wise why sell in the land the first time around.
Anyone BUT Obama and democrats!
Anya Khan
Good for Ms Crawford, in the 21st century we ae well passed the need for almost all imminant domain, and there is no need for it based on commercial reasons.
Iinidii Ideeshch'il
It is an interesting twist of irony that the Keystone is shrink-wrapped as a "security" issue... and just one hair shy of being packaged and spun as a buffer/buttress against "terrorism."
It is important for those who are the targeted, as well as other critically involved actors, to consider the similar features of the discourses and rhetoric being used to condemn these Texas property owners' lands, and the discourses and practices that were used to condemn 70 miles of lands to construct another problematic mega-project: the Border Wall on the Texas border.
There are important overlaps and intersections that should not be dismissed lightly, because it could be incredibly useful for property owners in this instance who are fighting the battle to protect their rights and interests in Texas in competition against the construed and alleged 'rights' of a transnational, the elite 1-5%, and the supposed "security" of the "nation." Consider the following:
In the case of the Texas-Mexico Border Wall, over 20 corporations have profited quite nicely on that project, which exploited the poverty and political marginalization of Indigenous peoples who are the original land owners, whose title underlies and predates the U.S. and Texas for that matter. In that case, the majority of the impacted peoples hold legitimate Aboriginal Title (recognized by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples--which, btw, was endorsed by the United States last year), Crown Title, Treaties (for example, the wall infringes on the Lipan Apache Band of Texas' treaties with Spain, Mexico, Texas and the U.S.; and on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
The following statement should be critically re-examined, as it is a useful way to link the way the transnationals use the state to spin and to deploy the ax to constitutional rights beyond borders:
"He said the company already had 99 percent of the easements it needed for the Texas segment and was working on snapping up the remaining holdouts."
In 2007, 2008, and 2009, former US DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff used nearly identical discourses and rhetoric against property owners along the Texas border: Indigenous peoples who had clear title to their lands vis-a-vis arrangements with the Spanish Crown; Hispanic and Latino private property owners many of whom had their land grant title confirmed by the first constitutional government of Texas; white farmers (mostly Euro-American emigrants to the region) whose properties had been in their families for 304 generations--were all condemned by the Secretary for the "security" and "protection" of the "nation."
As a result of the vehement resistance by Texas land owners against dispossession, (across race, class, religion, vocation, and different historical paths to land ownership--and dispossession...) the Secretary invented the mega waiver. Remember that?
Section 102 was the provision which voided 35 Federal Laws which effectively made it possible for big government to wipe out legal any possible relief to condemnation. This also obstructed any remedy as well, which is one of the underlying pillars of the Lipan Apaches' human rights violation petitions in the Inter-American Commission/Organization of American States--an ongoing investigation. Who benefitted directly from the mega waivers and the expedited condemnations? All the government contractors. They got their millions expedited and in their bank accounts. Who benefitted from the construction jobs? Not locals. Other 'Americans' the contractors brought in from Other U.S. states and counties. Remember, many Nebraska license plates suddenly appeared out of thin air in 2009 in Cameron County, Texas--and locals testified that it was as if there was an invasion of non-Texan construction workers and job supervisors in all the LRG Valley Mexican restaurants.
Again, the transnationals have profited quite nicely from the give-aways that the majority Republicans opened the gates for in South Texas with mega-projects such as the Border Wall and the Keystone on the premise of "security." "Security" is used to rationalize the large-scale, overthrow of democratic constitutional rights--and Texas property law and ownership is the key 'test' in their laboratory.
Building wealth for the elite 1%, on the backs of Texas property owners--in fact, was designed and architected by Texas Senators Hutchinson and Cornyn, who have consistently produced legislation and the means for not only whittling away, but hacking away at Texas property rights for the "security" of the "nation." In fact, the 35 federal laws that were voided to construct the Border Wall in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, were never re-instated by President Obama, and Hutchinson and Cornyn have been instrumental in ensuring that it stays that way in perpetuity.
I think most folks who do not have access to anything beyond the narrow confines of corporate-controlled television, radio, and mainstream 'news' should be offered more diverse tools to wrap their heads around this question, whose nation? what "good" and for whose benefit? Whose "security", because it sure is not property owners in Texas--and, as was proven along the 18 foot tall Border Wall, if you are Indigenous, a woman, an Elder, poor, a farmer, a pastoralist-subsistence herder, Catholic, and question the underlying rationale and extreme lack of foresight of the U.S. regime who are the goons of the transnationals, you are very likely to be severed of your land rights in the name of "security."
The best defense is a collective defense. Those currently targeted could save themselves a great amount of suffering and stress, and save themselves a huge amount of $$ and precious energy by studying the arguments against eminent domain, condemnation, and expedited taking ... as these played out in the LRG Valley. By studying the tactics and methods deployed by the government and corporations against land owners in the Lower Rio Grande Valley--and their push back--currently targeted peoples may be able to alter the debate. The pertinent documents are all available on the University of Texas School of Law website devoted to the cases. At http://www.utexas.edu/law/centers/humanrights/borderwall/
Don't be surprised if suddenly, all the properties along the path of the Keystone are suddenly found to be the "hiding places" of "terrorists", "drug lords", "cartels" and "potential threats" because that is the legal-moral framework that the government used to violently take the lands from Indigenous nations along the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
When I say 'violently' I mean that, when the collective action of hundreds of affected land owners organized significant resistance--refusing the government access to their lands-- the U.S. sent in armed personnel, used the presence of "boots on the ground", in the act of 'visiting' the property owners, one by one, in each community to enforce the taking of lands. Armed personnel (paid by U.S. tax payers) are used by the government to tell the targeted peoples that the constitution no longer exists in the targeted lands. Thank the Patriot Act for this reality--yea, it will eventually come after you, no matter what you thought your racial-religious-citizenship-geography protection buffer is/was. Now, folks along the Lower Rio Grande River and the Border Wall, are currently debating questions like this:
"It will be interesting to see if the dominant group--white Texans in the 'heartland'--and big ranchers’ voices are stronger--and if it will be decided that their property rights (perceived as inviolable and sacred)--are worth preserving. It will be interesting to see if the Texas dominant society will oppose the condemnation of those groups' lands. Why? Because in all their 'public opinions' of 2006 (Secure Fence Act, etc.) and 2007-2009 (during the construction of the Border Wall), they made it quite clear that it was 'OK" to use eminent domain to condemn the Aboriginal Title, Treaty Lands, Crown Grant lands, and individual private property of the low-income, Indigenous South Texans who lost land to eminent domain for the "security" of the "nation."
Perhaps the transnationals are now puncturing peoples' fragile conceptions of who is the 'enemy'?
Perhaps it would be an irony, if the most impoverished in Texas (not coincidentally all the counties of the Texas border are the highest poverty zones across the ENTIRE U.S....) though not without agency, put their vote with economic "security" ...
Afterall, that is what the transnationals have already counted on. Just as they calculated correctly that the majority of non-Indigenous peoples would not think, but rather would react to a barrage of anti-terror and 'security of the nation' jingoism which were key factors in the condemnations along the Texas border.
Interesting juncture, eh?
Finally, I wish to say a heartfelt 'good luck' to those whose lives are being destroyed by the Keystone-project which is connected to one of the most violent mass-scale destructive acts on our beautiful planet Earth. Decolonize Your Mind. If we are all going to go down due to the extreme disconnect, greed, selfishness, and self-absorption of the 1% and their 'end game', shall we not work to decolonize the borders of hate and isolation they have constructed, and instead, work collectively for dignity?
When will humanity (in Texas beyond borders) stand together, beyond differences, deception, corruption, the hate and isolation, the fictions, and dismantle completely this thoroughly violent and cannibalistic system?
Iinidii Ideeshch'il
David Spratt
There will never be a new refinery built in this country , anywhere. Just as with the pipeline there would only have to be a handful of people who object and it would be tied up for a decade or more. Maybe we should have never tried to go to the moon , since " something?" might happen. We should not frac since something might happen,,, we should not drill in the gulf since something might happen,,, we should never build another nuclear power plant , since something might happen. Do all these people who live in fear just stay at home all the time? They really should because if they leave home , something might happen.
In most cases landowners are being paid for the use of the right of way , and still have surface use of the land. Let a utility put power lines across your land and cows will not even know they are there. I can look out my window where a pipeline runs pumping oil through it every single day and other than markers denoting the path you cannot even tell it is there. Cows walk over it and happily graze without any ill effects.
Dirty or not the oil will still be mined and it will get used , electric cars are coal powered and ethanol costs five times what gasoline does. I hear Ford is working on a car that runs on pixie dust, problem is no one has found a reliable source of pixie dust.
David McFatridge
Crawford Farms Takes On Tar Sands Pipeline
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmcTzht2XH8