Missouri House revives eminent domain battle over electrical transmission lines

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The Missouri House has revived a 2019 eminent domain battle by passing a bill that would require county commissions approve any proposed electrical transmission line spanning their jurisdictions.

House Bill 527, filed by state Rep. Mike Haffner, R-Pleasant Valley, would require approvals for a “merchant line” – such as the Grain Belt Express project – provide the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) with a resolution of support from county commissions they would traverse.

HB 527 was approved by the House in a 123-33 vote on Feb. 25 – its passage included a four-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee – and now awaits hearings in the Senate.

The bill seeks to undo a PSC determination that Chicago-based renewable energy developer Invenergy can condemn property for the towers it needs to build its $2.3 billion Grain Belt transmission line that would traverse 780 miles and four states to deliver 4,000 megawatts of wind-derived energy from western Kansas to Indiana, where it will be fed into an 11-state grid.

The PSC rejected the project in 2018, which would traverse 206 miles in Missouri and span eight counties largely over property rights objections.

However, when Invenergy assumed ownership of the project in 2019, it asked the PSC to designate it as a public utility to grant it eminent domain authority to condemn private property to secure rights-of-way easements, the PSC agreed.

In May 2019, the Missouri House moved a bill similar to Haffner’s HB 527 that would have barred Invenergy from using eminent domain to build transmission lines. The measure died in the Senate before the session expired and the matter was shuffled aside during 2020’s pandemic-scrambled session.

Haffner said the PSC’s decision is adamantly opposed by farmers, homeowners and local governments across the state.

“There are valid uses of eminent domain for legitimate infrastructure purposes that serve the public good, but we should not allow our state to become an energy super-highway for powering the East Coast or line the pockets of private for-profit companies,” Haffner said. “Agriculture is our state’s number one industry and today’s vote sends a powerful message that our Missouri family farms and constitutional private property rights always come first.”

Under HB 527, electric cooperatives and nonprofits are exempt from a prohibition on developers of above-ground transmission lines using the power of eminent domain.

If adopted, Invenergy would need to secure approvals from the Buchanan, Clinton, Caldwell, Carroll, Chariton, Randolph, Monroe and Ralls county commissions to build its transmission lines across the state.

The Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB) in a statement praised HB 527’s advance and called on the Senate to make a “bold stand supporting property rights” by endorsing the measure.

“Eminent Domain must be reserved for truly public uses, and today’s vote by the House puts us one step closer to strengthening our property rights in Missouri,” MFP President Garrett Hawkins said. “We call on the Missouri Senate to pass this legislation without delay.”

Invenergy spokeswoman Beth Conley said the bill was expected and is no different than previous efforts to use property right concerns as a fake reason to derail the delivery of “clean energy” overwhelmingly supported in Missouri and across the country.

“For several years in a row now legislation has been filed aimed at preventing dozens of Missouri communities from obtaining clean, affordable power from the Grain Belt Express project,” Conley said. “Each time it has failed, and this time will be no different.”

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