Going back to the Depression and TVA, Tennessee has been more Platonic than Aristotelian in its concept of property rights, meaning that if the gubmint thinks your property can be doing something better than you’re doing with it, it will buy your property whether or not you want to sell it, and do with it what it thinks is better.
Same thing with Arkansas; my “ancestral” home is at the bottom of Lake Catherine, and not because nature put it there. It was a common occurrence, cf. the 1960 movie “Wild River” where the eminent domain was exercised for the public good. What makes the EV issue easy is that no one has to build an EV factory at a specific place, so there is only grift, no other reason.
Very true. TVA, Fort Campbell, Lake Barkley, LBL,Oak Ridge, etc. The feds with help of the general assembly has generosity given away Tennessee farmers land for peanuts and manufactured I’ll will towards the government for generations.
Our family got taken when Fort Campbell was formed. Three farms were removed from our family tree on both sides.
Pennies on the dollar.
Eminent domain in the hands of crooks is as much thief as a gun in the hands of a robber
But the use a pen.
TVA has been a Federal entity since it’s conception May 18, 1933 and the Tennessee Valley Authority Act was signed by Roosevelt. We/our electrical co-ops buy power from them.
My ancestral homes in TN & NC are under Tellico to Fontana. I can’t even visit the graves of my ancestors because the gov renigged on the Road to Nowhere under Obama for the final time.
They need to go build this on a Superfund site away from rivers and streams and not on anyones farmland.