Building power lines means negotiating with a string of landowners. In Wyoming, it only takes one property owner to slow down or stop the march of power lines across the landscape.
Landowner advocates and industry groups huddled around this issue during the interim session, and on Tuesday the Wyoming House passed Senate File 181 and sent it to the governor’s desk aon a 57-4 vote.
The new law essentially throws an arm around landowner holdouts and sets up a process to cut deals using eminent domain. It also prevents an energy company or single landowner from forcing eminent domain on his neighbors if they don’t want power lines crossing their land.
“This is a private property rights bill,” Senator Barry Crago told the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 20. “This bill really is sort of a middle-of the road approach. It protects private property rights, but it does not prevent the use of eminent domain 100%. It puts some pretty high sideboards on the use of eminent domain but does not make it illegal or prevent the use of it for wind or solar projects.”
“We worked with industry, we worked with landowners,” continued Crago, sponsor of SF 181. “It protects private property rights over whose land the transmission lines might go.”
Why Now?
SF 181 specifically addresses “compensation related to the condemnation of property for the erection, placement or expansion of an energy collector system associated with a commercial facility generating electricity.”
Conner Nicklas, a Cheyenne attorney who represents landowners in negotiations over the placement of power lines, told Cowboy State Daily Tuesday that Wyoming needs this new law to protect landowners and keep up with a growing demand for collector system power lines.
These are the capillaries of the state’s energy grid, pulling electricity from a new generation source like a wind farm or solar array.
“I'd say within the last three to four years and especially now, wind and solar projects are becoming a lot more prominent in Wyoming,” said Nicklas.
Without the protections written into SF 181, companies behind these projects could condemn 100% of all the landowners, said Nicklas.
“They could use eminent domain and essentially condemn the entire line,” said Nicklas. “What this bill does, is that it requires the company to either acquire 66% of the entire land area or 66% of the landowners, before they would have the ability to use eminent domain.”
In other words, any company building an energy collector power line needs to negotiate with and win over a significant number of landowners before proceeding with any eminent domain condemnation.
“It strikes a fair balance,” said Nicklas. “You can't have just one single holdout. And on the other hand, you can't have it be that a person who wants to have a project in place can basically strongarm all the rest of the landowners.”
Call Your County Commissioner
SF 181 also loops in county commissioners to the process. If a landowner is opposed to power lines crossing their land, they might seek support from their county commissioners, who can pass ordinances and zoning regulations to address the landowner’s concerns.
The legislation encountered little pushback from opponents during a Feb. 20 hearing, with energy industry attorney Cindy DeLancey of Holland & Hart offering tweaks, suggestions and questioning the need for the legislation.
“This bill continues to hunt for a problem,” said DeLancey. “The use of eminent domain is still a tiny percentage of the possible instances of where this could be used. So again, from an industry perspective, we're not not fixing a problem with this legislation.”
Supporters of SF 181 continued with a drumbeat of examples of single landowner holdouts stopping power line construction.
“We’ve seen a scenario where a landowner with a very small length of line crossing them would
be able to prevent 20 other landowners from entering into agreements that are lucrative to their interest,” Jim Magagna, Executive Vice President of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association, told the Wyoming House Agriculture Committee during a Feb. 20 hearing.
Unlike House Bill 91, which aspired to prevent energy companies from using eminent domain to build any collector power lines, SF 181 finds common ground, according to supporters. HB 91 was voted down in the House on Jan. 21.
“HB 91 was just an outright ban on eminent domain. That's the difference really is,” said landowner attorney Nicklas. “SF 181 kind of strikes that balance of you have to get 66% of landowners before you can advance with eminent domain.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
