State property owners need clear laws
“Mitch McConnell’s decision to kick off his tenure as Senate majority leader with a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline is igniting a debate that could force his fellow Republicans to say whether they think human-caused climate change is real.
In Kentucky, Keystone raises questions of a more local, even personal, nature: How to protect farms, forests, home places and property rights from energy companies that claim the power of eminent domain? Also, how to make smart decisions about routing pipelines and their above-ground infrastructure?
Kentucky lies between booming shale oil and gas fields to the north and refineries and chemical processors on the Gulf. A plan to build a natural gas liquids pipeline through 13 counties was dropped last year after an outcry of opposition and a Franklin Circuit Court ruling that the company could not force landowners to sell.”
Heartland Daily 23 January 2015.