7/1/21 SCOTUS Hands Power to Condemn State and Private Land to a Pipeline Builder

Those of us who've been in a state of relative bliss since Biden cancelled the Dakota Access Pipeline -- that is, all of us -- got a rude awakening today thanks to a stunning decision by SCOTUS to allow a private pipeline builder to use eminent domain to condemn land on behalf of the state.

The PennEast Pipeline Company, which is building a natural gas line from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, is the beneficiary of SCOTUS's decision, which was 5 to 4 and written by Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts said, in the New York Times's wording, that the government was entitled to delegate its power of eminent domain to private parties even where state property is at issue.

Alito, Kavanaugh, and liberal justices Kagan and Breyer joined Roberts -- further evidence that a court with a conservative majority has produced strange bedfellows, who hop from bed to bed depending on the case. Equally surprising was the fact that Amy Coney Barrett's dissenting opinion was joined by Kagan, Gorsuch, and Thomas.

The ruling allows New Jersey to hand control of its eminent domain powers to a pipeline is also a ruling that will allow North and South Dakota to hand its powers of eminent domain to some of the most rapacious, ruthless private entities we ever want to see -- i.e., people who might produce a travesty like the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Let's hope that the opinion doesn't bring that one back to life, like the bloodsucking vampire it proved to be. Because it's going to be awfully hard to find a silver bullet.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/us/supreme-court-pipeline-new-jersey-land-seizure.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210630&instance_id=34188&nl=the-morning&regi_id=86904976&segment_id=62115&te=1&user_id=9eedf77d8afca88a98053cf5b3cb2c1b&fbclid=IwAR3xTtVz8tlnBcB4hySJYyOlZEThdOJvTe2NIidyajMagLLJQM44KYwAyc8