PennEast Turns to Eminent Domain, Violating Rights

The long-running battle over the PennEast corporation’s application to run a natural gas pipeline from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania into New Jersey, which I have strongly supported, last year reached a point that I cannot support. In an article updated January 2019, Landowners are holding up PennEast. Now the pipeline is fighting back, Michael Sol Warren of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com reported:

Carla Kelly-Mackey has been fighting to keep a pipeline off of her farm for years.

Now, the private company is looking to use eminent domain, a right usually reserved for the government, to get at the land.

I posted these comments:

I am a big supporter of energy production, including pipelines that deliver natural gas. Energy is vital to human life and flourishing. Energy is the industry that powers all other industry that keeps us alive and well. 

I am also a big supporter of freedom based on individual rights, including property rights. So I draw the line on my support for the PennEast pipeline at eminent domain. 

It is said that “Eminent domain is generally used by local, state and federal agencies to seize private land for projects that serve the public good.” But a public good justification is vague. Since every person is a part of the public, then any project that serves any member of the public can be deemed to be in “the public good.” Thus, you get bizarre distinctions like, if its for a road, we can seize your land. But a pipeline?—no way.

But roads are different than private nat-gas pipelines, you say? Why? Are users of roads “the public,” but users of natural gas are not? But the PennEast pipeline is used for private profit, you say? But so are the roads. Did you ever see all those trucks traveling the roads carrying merchandise intended for sale for profit? What about all those cars carrying people to work—people looking to profit from their labor? Why are their jobs more important than the jobs of people who would work on building and maintaining the pipeline? When the “public good” is the standard, it turns out that the “good” of some people takes precedence over the “good” of others.

Why? How is that just? Just because the good of some people is deemed good for “the public”?

Patricia Kornick, a spokeswoman for PennEast, observes that “organized and unaccountable opposition groups have their own political agenda.” True. Everyone has a political agenda, thanks to eminent domain. When “the public good” (or “public need”) is the standard, then the public good turns out to be defined by whoever gets the upper hand of government power on their side. 

Federal approval or not, there is no justification for anyone using the power of government to seize private property—not even by government officials; not even for a road. The “public good” or the “public need” is a terrible standard, precisely because there is no way to be fair about it. The proper standard is to protect private property rights. This means PennEast can only gain access to land by voluntary agreement of landowners, or not at all. What if owners refuse? Then find another route, make a better offer, etc. 

Most of the arguments used by opponents of the pipeline are hogwash, driven by Environmentalist dogma or “clean energy” agendas or bogus and irrelevant economic arguments. However, much as I want to see the pipeline built, I side with the property owners on this. This is another example of why eminent domain should be abolished in all of its manifestations. America is the land of unalienable individual rights. Eminent domain is un-American. Except, perhaps, for very narrow military purposes directly related to national security, the power of eminent domain should be abolished.

Related Reading:

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

Why Do We Need Pipelines?—Pipeline 101

Eminent Domain: The Dark Side of Pipelines

'Preserved land' is a Form of Eminent Domain

Who Decides Whether PennEast’s Pipeline is Needed, Necessary, and Wanted?

Untangling the PennEast Pipeline Rights Conundrum