Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom
Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a bill into law that intervenes in a north Louisiana land dispute between an interstate power line company and a wealthy property owner.
The legislation that created the law, Senate Bill 108, sponsored by Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, is scheduled to take effect Aug. 1.
The law is tailored in ways that would effectively prohibit a single business from exercising its expropriation rights, which allow governments and utilities to force the sale of private land for public use. Expropriation is typically used for development of a project that serves a greater public need, such as a new highway or, as in this case, a power line. The company can’t just take the land but has to prove the importance of the project to a local jury and pay the landowner a minimum of fair market value.
Seabaugh crafted the legislation to target Pattern Energy’s Southern Spirit Transmission line, a 320-mile, high-voltage line that would begin at a power station in DeSoto Parish and deliver wind-generated electricity from the Texas grid to a power station in Choctaw County, Mississippi, crossing through north Louisiana. Wind has been the cheapest source of electricity for the past several years in the United States and around the world, according to a study by the financial firm Lazard.
Although the power line would end in Mississippi, it would feed electricity into Louisiana by way of the regional Midcontinent Independent System Operator grid. The MISO grid covers most of Louisiana and Mississippi and spans into a large swath of the Midwest and parts of Manitoba, Canada. This allows utility companies across state lines to share electrical loads and adjust to demand spikes and other incidents that could cause service interruptions.
Seabaugh has argued the power line would not deliver “one watt of electricity” to Louisiana. The senator has acknowledged he sponsored the bill upon the request of at least one Louisiana landowner who doesn’t want to sell his land to Pattern Energy.
One of those landowners is Paul Dickson Sr., a principal owner and former board chairman of the Shreveport-based Morris & Dickson Co., one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors that federal authorities charged with mishandling thousands of large orders of prescription opioids during the height of the nation’s opioid crisis, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Last year, the Associated Press reported on secretive negotiations between Dickson and a top DEA official. Dickson, a major GOP donor and Jeff Landry backer, worked out a deal with the agent in 2016 to allow the company to keep its distributor’s license. The agent has since left the DEA and received a $3 million consulting contract from Morris & Dickson.
Dickson’s company kept its license until May 2023 when the AP uncovered the negotiations, prompting the DEA to revoke the license.
Negotiations were also at the front of Dickson’s mind at a House committee hearing on the bill in April. He told the lawmakers he supported Seabaugh’s legislation because it would give him and other landowners a greater advantage in negotiations with Pattern Energy.
“It will get done well,” Dickson said. “Right now, the landowner’s hands are tied behind his back. Senate Bill 108 gives the landowner the ability to negotiate by removing the threat of expropriation.”
21 states join Biden administration in bid to modernize nation’s aging grid
Pattern Energy executives initially said the new law will stop the Southern Spirit Transmission project, which has been under development for nearly a decade, though Seabaugh has disagreed with this notion. The law doesn’t actually block the power line project but would merely prevent the company from using the expropriation process to acquire the land, he said, stopping the company from “taking the land of Louisiana landowners against their will.”
For now, it appears the project remains intact. Reached for comment Wednesday, Pattern Energy executive Adam Renz said the company hasn’t yet decided how to proceed.
“Despite the passage of SB 108, we remain committed to Southern Spirit Transmission, and we are evaluating the best path to building this critical project that will create a valuable connection to diverse energy resources, enhance grid reliability during extreme weather events, and provide low-cost clean energy to consumers,” Renz said in an email.
Louisiana’s expropriation statutes don’t give companies direct power to take land against an owner’s will. Rather, they allow a company to file an expropriation lawsuit. The process works its way through state court in the parish where the land is located, allowing landowners the opportunity to contest it and placing the decision in the hands of a hometown jury.
Some experts, such as Louisiana Public Service Commission Executive Secretary Brandon Frey, have expressed concern that Seabaugh’s measure could violate federal law. Interstate transmission power lines are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
If Pattern Energy or some other party files a lawsuit over Seabaugh’s law, the state would be the defendant. Louisiana taxpayers could bear the cost of legal fees for what is essentially a private land dispute that the landowner would have otherwise paid for if lawmakers had not gotten involved.
The post Law will help wealthy Louisiana landowner in dispute with power line builder appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator.