Texas Farmers Lose Another Bid to Block Keystone Pipeline
“TransCanada Corp. (TRP) won another of the remaining Texas state-court challenges by landowners trying to block construction of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline across their property.
A state appeals court in Beaumont, Texas, denied a bid by David Holland and his partners in a southeast Texas rice farm to overturn a lower-court order that let TransCanada install its pipeline before the landowners’ appeals were completed.
Holland challenged Keystone’s status as a common carrier, with the right to use eminent domain statutes to condemn an easement across his land. He argued that a 2012 Texas Supreme Court decision required the pipeline to prove it was a common carrier before it could take possession of the land through eminent domain.”
Calkins, Laurel Brubaker. Bloomberg News 23 May 2013.