XL Eminent Domain

          It may have gotten lost in the shuffle that eminent domain is granted to government entities for the purpose of doing public good. Things like improving urban housing to eliminate substandard conditions, thus promoting the general welfare, and building roads for citizens’ public use. Eminent domain permits the government unit using it, to compensate and take private property from its citizens for public use or public good.

           Along comes the XL Pipeline and suddenly everybody gets amnesia. The pipeline is owned and operated by a private company for the private gain of the owners of tar sand fields in Canada, the pipeline, refiners, and the Chinese. Proponents want to invoke eminent domain to use American citizens’ land for the benefit of oil industry owners and foreign consumers. This is NOT for public good. It is for the good of capitalists and corporations.

           Amid all the strong feelings about petroleum development and the consequences or lack thereof related to using fossil fuels, a great many people, excluding Native Americans, have forgotten that eminent domain is for public good, not for corporate welfare. Not for the enrichment of capitalists. And certainly not for permitting these foreign interests to endanger America’s precious resources with the dirtiest petroleum on earth.

           Around here, we think the eminent domain issue alone makes support of the XL Pipeline an abandonment of established governing principles, and an act of abject servitude to special interests. Your Senators and Congresspersons need to hear your opinions repeatedly between now and February!