Texas Rice Land Partners v. Denbury is back before the Texas Supreme Court. The case that caused such controversy when originally decided by that court in 2012, involves when a pipeline company can exercise the right of eminent domain to condemn pipeline easements. Denbury decided to build a pipeline to…
Google has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund to detect leaks in gas lines in the Los Angeles Area, Boston, Indianapolis, Staten Island, Syracuse, and Burlington, Vermont. Google attached methane detectors to the cars it uses to create its street map images and has mapped the locations where it found levels…
The Texas Railroad Commission has adopted amendments to its pipeline permits rule, 16 TAC Sec. 3.70. The amendments require pipeline companies to submit documentation to support their claim that they will operate the line as a common carrier or gas utility. In Texas, pipelines have the right to condemn pipeline…
The Texas Railroad Commission has published a proposed rule that will change how pipelines are classified as “common carriers” and “gas utilities.” That classification determines whether pipelines can exercise the power of eminent domain — the power to condemn rights-of-way for pipelines. In 2011, the Texas Supreme Court held in…
I recently ran across this very good article on the tax treatment of payments received for granting of pipeline easements: http://www.aicpa.org/Publications/TaxAdviser/2014/march/Pages/Kebodeaux_mar2014.aspx
Julia Trigg-Crawford, a landowner in Lamar County, has asked the Texas Supreme Court to hear her case arguing that TransCanada has no right to condemn her property for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Crawford Family Farm Partnership v. TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P., No. 13-0866. Although other segments of the pipeline…
Julia Trigg Crawford has waged a well-publicized fight to prevent condemnation of an easement across her farm for the XL Keystone Pipeline. On August 27, the 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana denied her appeal of TransCanada Keystone Pipeline’s award of an easement over her property. Crawford has vowed to…
State Impact Texas’ Mose Buchele has a good article on increased litigation over pipeline condemnations. My partner Bill Christian, who represents landowners in condemnation matters, is quoted in the article. Even has his picture!
Mose Buchele has written a series of articles, also aired on KUT, about the pipeline industry’s failed efforts to make it easier for pipelines to exercise the power of eminent domain after the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Texas Rice Land Partners, Ltd. v. Denbury Green Pipeline-Tex., LLC, 363 S.W.3d 192,…
Colleen Schreiber has written an excellent article in the June 13 edition of Livestock Weekly, “Landowners Hold Off Oil and Gas Lobby on Common Carrier Bills,” describing the blow-by-blow negotiations and lobbying in the pipeline industry’s efforts to “solve” the problems created by the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Tex.…