(Huffington Post) From Bundy to Keystone XL: Where’s the property rights outrage here?

Huffington Post via Grist ^ | 05-12-2014 | Kate Sheppard

[PaulCruz2016]

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has become something of a folk hero among the anti-government, pro-property rights crowd, thanks to his recent standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management. Some landowners in the path of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline want to know where the support for them has been, since their private property will actually be taken away without their approval.

Bundy and his supporters don’t recognize federal ownership of the land where his cattle have been grazing illegally for more than two decades. He refuses to pay grazing fees, arguing that he has “ancestral rights” to the land — an argument that a federal court has rejected, and which may not be historically accurate.

But many of the pundits and talking heads who rallied behind Bundy are also advocating the Keystone XL pipeline – despite the ranchers and farmers up in arms about pipeline owner TransCanada Corp. trying to force its way onto their land.

That includes third-generation Texas farmer Julia Trigg Crawford, who has been fighting for years to prevent TransCanada from running the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline through her property. Crawford’s 600-acre farm is in Direct, Texas, where she raises soybeans, wheat, corn, and cattle. She turned down TransCanada’s original offer for her land. The company took her to court to claim eminent domain to take it anyway.

“They didn’t have a right to take my land against my will,” Crawford told The Huffington Post this week. She had just returned to Texas from a Keystone XL protest in Washington, where she joined other ranchers and tribal groups.

[PaulCruz2016]

A foreign company (TransCanada) trying to seize Americans' land through eminent domain doesn't sit right with me, pipeline or no.

[RIghtwardHo]

Hey, I never got on the Bundy bandwagon.

And, sadly, yes the Government (Fed or State) CAN take land via eminent domain. It’s been like that since we’ve had governments. There is required compensation but it is usually ridiculously low. Happens all the time.

I don’t like any of this. For this reason I’ve never been a real fan of Keystone.

[wideawake]

What is at issue is not "her land" - it is an easement.

And Ms. Crawford negotiated the price of a lease of the easement area with Transcanada for six years, waiting until every other right of way was secured but hers.

She was willing to lease for a price, but now - because the company asked the county government to grant the easement - she is claiming that the company came out of nowhere. She is also implying that they are asserting title to her land, which they aren't.

There is big risk or big money when you play the holdout game. Now she's pretending that she never played it.

[deport]

I’d like to know if this was an easement for subsurface ROW or was it an outright
purchase/taking of the land.

[TigersEye]

Don’t take this as support for TransCanada (I don’t know the particulars) but eminent domain and the FedGov holding land are apples and oranges issues.