Eminent Domain Imminent
[Note to our International Colleagues: This is an issue that concerns voters in the USA first and foremost. However, the handing of such vast domestic powers to conglomerate corporations surely concerns the international community. Energy corporations are the chief motivators of war in most global hot spots today.]
Eminent Domain Imminent
Now in a backyard near you!
Folks, be the first in your neighborhood to lose your house to eminent domain.
We've been waiting awhile for the second boot to drop. And now it has, with a great thunderous boom of applied gravity. It astonishes us that the reaction of the American citizenry has been hardly a whimper of complaint.
First, in its infamous 2005 "Kelo versus New London" decision, the US Supreme Court decided that a local government could use the power of eminent domain against private citizens on behalf of for-profit corporations. If the state of Connecticut wanted to toss out the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, it was okay with Their Honors.
Legislators everywhere passed resolutions which stated for the record how nasty they thought that was, but did little in the way of passing laws to prevent future practice of said nastiness.
The same year, surely unprecedented for the unopposed seizing of power away from American citizens, also saw the introduction of "The Energy Policy Act of 2005". This authorized the Department of Energy [DOE] Secretary to designate "National Corridors", based solely upon the DOE's own findings as delineated in their "National Electric Transmission Congestion Study".
Now the Department of Energy has seized the power of eminent domain in the name of Homeland Security, and proposes to hand over vast tracts of United States geography to private corporations. Let's use our imaginations here. Dominion power company and other for-profit companies of similar ilk are now presented with a federal sized bulldozer. What's next? One of the conglomerate oil companies with a mile-wide drill bit?
Under the same logic, pursuing further examples, what's to keep the Department of Health and Human Services from seizing hospitals, and giving them to major insurance companies in the name of Homeland Security? Hey, in the event of a major terrorist attack, those hospitals could be really important. Why shouldn't the Department of Transportation seize and demolish a town for the sake of an interstate highway needed to move troops from one military base to another in an efficient manner?
We ought to remind ourselves, the Department of Energy is not controlled by elected officials. It is a ponderous bureaucratic entity whose leadership is a political plum offered by executive appointment. If American citizens allow the current measure to go unchallenged, we are basically taking the carte blanche of eminent domain over the entire United States of America and willingly handing it to an individual Washington DC bureaucrat.
An appropriately loud howl of protest appears to be limited to our much beloved local newspaper, the "Blue Ridge Leader". Congratulations to Mr Dewey for his outstanding "View from the Ridge: Electric Power Fasting". [Loudoun County, Virginia, 11 May 2007]
But hey, wait! All is not yet lost. For once, US voters, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, have a chance to do something practical. We can call or write our US Congressmen and ask them to support the congressional initiative to block relevant portions of the U.S. Department of Energy's proposal for "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor" designations.
Specifically, bills that would prevent this outrageous seizing of power and the precedent for untold future acts of eminent domain, are: H.R.809, H.R.810, and H.R.829, as sponsored by Frank Wolf (R-VA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Tom Davis (R-VA), Michael A. Arcuri (D-NY), Todd Russell Platts (R-PA), John Hall (D-NY), John McHugh (R-NY), Chris Carney (D-PA), Kenny Marchant (R-TX), and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ).
Then contact your friends and relatives across the United States, because this concerns us all.
Eminent Domain Imminent
Now in a backyard near you!
Folks, be the first in your neighborhood to lose your house to eminent domain.
We've been waiting awhile for the second boot to drop. And now it has, with a great thunderous boom of applied gravity. It astonishes us that the reaction of the American citizenry has been hardly a whimper of complaint.
First, in its infamous 2005 "Kelo versus New London" decision, the US Supreme Court decided that a local government could use the power of eminent domain against private citizens on behalf of for-profit corporations. If the state of Connecticut wanted to toss out the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, it was okay with Their Honors.
Legislators everywhere passed resolutions which stated for the record how nasty they thought that was, but did little in the way of passing laws to prevent future practice of said nastiness.
The same year, surely unprecedented for the unopposed seizing of power away from American citizens, also saw the introduction of "The Energy Policy Act of 2005". This authorized the Department of Energy [DOE] Secretary to designate "National Corridors", based solely upon the DOE's own findings as delineated in their "National Electric Transmission Congestion Study".
Now the Department of Energy has seized the power of eminent domain in the name of Homeland Security, and proposes to hand over vast tracts of United States geography to private corporations. Let's use our imaginations here. Dominion power company and other for-profit companies of similar ilk are now presented with a federal sized bulldozer. What's next? One of the conglomerate oil companies with a mile-wide drill bit?
Under the same logic, pursuing further examples, what's to keep the Department of Health and Human Services from seizing hospitals, and giving them to major insurance companies in the name of Homeland Security? Hey, in the event of a major terrorist attack, those hospitals could be really important. Why shouldn't the Department of Transportation seize and demolish a town for the sake of an interstate highway needed to move troops from one military base to another in an efficient manner?
We ought to remind ourselves, the Department of Energy is not controlled by elected officials. It is a ponderous bureaucratic entity whose leadership is a political plum offered by executive appointment. If American citizens allow the current measure to go unchallenged, we are basically taking the carte blanche of eminent domain over the entire United States of America and willingly handing it to an individual Washington DC bureaucrat.
An appropriately loud howl of protest appears to be limited to our much beloved local newspaper, the "Blue Ridge Leader". Congratulations to Mr Dewey for his outstanding "View from the Ridge: Electric Power Fasting". [Loudoun County, Virginia, 11 May 2007]
But hey, wait! All is not yet lost. For once, US voters, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, have a chance to do something practical. We can call or write our US Congressmen and ask them to support the congressional initiative to block relevant portions of the U.S. Department of Energy's proposal for "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor" designations.
Specifically, bills that would prevent this outrageous seizing of power and the precedent for untold future acts of eminent domain, are: H.R.809, H.R.810, and H.R.829, as sponsored by Frank Wolf (R-VA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Tom Davis (R-VA), Michael A. Arcuri (D-NY), Todd Russell Platts (R-PA), John Hall (D-NY), John McHugh (R-NY), Chris Carney (D-PA), Kenny Marchant (R-TX), and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ).
Then contact your friends and relatives across the United States, because this concerns us all.