Missouri lawmakers to hear testimony on bill to prevent eminent domain for renewable energy projects
Alison Patton
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Missouri lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit electrical corporations from using eminent domain to build wind and solar farms.
House Bill 2169 is going in front of the House Special Committee on Rural Issues at 4 pm. Wednesday. This bill is similar to two others from previous legislative sessions.
Bill sponsor Brad Pollitt (R-Sedalia) gave an example.
If three landowners owned about 80 acres total, and the two on the outside decide to install solar panels, then the solar company cannot use eminent domain to purchase the land in the middle to expand the solar farm.
Pollitt said he wasn’t aware of a case like the exaple happening, but the bill would close a “loophole.”
“There’s nothing in statute that says that that company cannot use eminent domain to take the other 80 acres to complete their solar project,” Pollitt said. “I want to specifically put in statute that they cannot do that.”
The public hearing on Pollitt’s bill was about 20 minutes long, and no one showed up in opposition to the bill.
Pollitt said the best chance to get his bill into law is actually in passing House Bill 2762, which absorbed Pollitt’s original bill. HB 2762 puts parameters around solar panels.
HB 2762, sponsored by Rep. Brad Banderman (R-St. Clair), passed out of the Utilities Committee on March 26. Pollitt said they are waiting for it to be assigned and discussed in the Rules Committee before it can be sent to the House Floor.
Both bills comes as Grain Belt Express, LLC., has filed multiple cases in Callaway County to force land owners to sell the company easements for construction and work on its transmission line. However, Pollitt said his bill does not apply to transmission lines.
“My bill actually specifically says that this does not associate with transmission lines,” Pollitt said. “This is only the land itself. Eminent domain can’t be used to acquire additional land to put up additional solar panels.”
The project will cross Missouri to deliver power from western wind fields to Illinois. The route will run through Mid-Missouri, and a connection is planned from north of Centralia to near Kingdom City. That route includes land in Monroe, Audrain and Callaway counties, according to the Grain Belt website.
Grain Belt sued the Missouri Attorney General’s Office after former Attorney General Andrew Bailey began an investigation into the project, alleging it had misled regulators and the public. New Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who was chief legal counsel for Grain Belt in her private practice before becoming attorney general, reached an agreement with the company to provide her office with documents.
Lawmakers have about a month and a half to pass legislation before the session ends on May 15.