Missouri Bill Would Ban Eminent Domain, but Only for Wind and Solar Projects
Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives passed a law curtailing the government’s ability to take private property. Unfortunately, the bill seems more like a culture war posturing than a genuine reclamation of private property rights, and it does not go nearly far enough.
House Bill 1750, sponsored by state Rep. Mike Haffner (R–Pleasant Hill), passed the House on Thursday by a comfortable 115–27 margin. The bill would amend the state’s law on eminent domain to exclude “any plant, tower, panel, or facility that utilizes, captures, or converts” either wind or solar energy “to generate or manufacture electricity.”
Eminent domain is the government’s power to seize private property for public use, authorized by the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Traditionally, a government would take private land in order to, for example, build a highway or run utility lines; the property owners would have to go along with it but would be entitled to “just compensation.”
But in 2005, the Supreme Court decided in Kelo v. City of New London that eminent domain could include seizing private property to give to private developers; Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose.” Connecticut homeowner Susette Kelo originally brought the lawsuit when the City of New London moved to seize her house, among others, so that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer could build a research and development facility. By 2009, Pfizer abandoned its plans for the area, leaving Kelo’s former property an empty lot.
Some states offer citizens greater protection from seizure. In 2006, one year after the Kelo decision, Florida passed H.B. 1567, which removed the state’s ability to condemn properties for “blight” and required cities to wait at least 10 years after taking a property before transferring it to another owner. The following year, New Mexico passed H.B. 393, which “remov[ed] the ability to condemn property for economic development” in state law.
Unfortunately, not every state responded to Kelo with such forthright protections for private property. “Missouri is a state sorely in need of eminent
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