By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey seeks to continue the fight against the Grain Belt Express transmission line across northern Missouri, despite state regulatory approval.
Bailey says his office stands ready to protect Missouri farmland from abuses of eminent domain as Grain Belt is built.
“You’ve got legacy farmers who value their land, because it’s been in their family for 100 years or more,” Bailey tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “Private property is one of the central organizing principles of our entire democratic republic and we’re going to fight to protect that.”
The Missouri Public Service Commission has given the green light to construction of the 5,000 megawatt line delivering wind-generated energy from Kansas to the East Coast. The $2 billion project is being built across northern Missouri by Invenergy of Chicago. The PSC gave approval after Invenergy agreed to divert more electricity for Missouri use.
Bailey opposes Grain Belt.
“It doesn’t benefit the people of the state of Missouri,” Bailey states. “This is a coastal elite from the East Coast with deep pockets that wants to endear himself to his more progressive friends and support a green new deal and all sorts of renewable energy sources and he wants to run power lines through Missouri to do it. How does that benefit the rest of us? And why are we going to take away legacy farms in the process?”
Grain Belt has been controversial from the beginning. Several efforts in the state legislature against the transmission line failed. Finally, the legislature approved changes to the eminent domain process, requiring utilities to give landowners 150% of the fair market value of their land for use as a right-of-way.
Bailey says those reforms don’t go far enough. He wants stronger protections for property owners, especially farmland owners. Bailey goes so far as to say the state should seek a case to alter or overturn the 2005 US Supreme Court Kelo decision that ruled eminent domain could be used if a project is proven to be of “public benefit,” rather than the more restrictive “public use” as defined in Missouri law.
Bailey says the unsuccessful fight against Grain Belt demonstrates the weakness of property rights in eminent domain cases.
“I think we need to put an end, in statute, to eminent domain used to take land for public benefit,” Bailey says. “That is a very subjective element in the consideration and it needs to be rolled back, limited. There needs to be a specific process in place. And, if land’s going to be taken, how does it benefit the people of the state of Missouri?”
Bailey says his office is advising property owners to do their research before agreeing to sell land for any right-of-way.
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