HB 198's peculiar politics

It’s a done deal now, but we have to scratch our heads at the strange bedfellows who came together to push House Bill 198 to the governor’s desk.

HB 198 gave the owners of the proposed Montana Alberta Tie Line the right to use the power of eminent domain to take private land from Montanans who objected to the route of the power transmission line.

Gov. Schweitzer has been an advocate of the project for some time, touting its benefits not just for energy reliability, but also as a way to tap wind energy in Eastern Montana and to create jobs.

Some Republicans have agreed with the governor all along, but others had based their opposition to the bill on a defense of property rights. But when push came to shove, property rights gave way to simple power politics.

Here’s how the issue came about:

When one landowner family objected to the proposed route of the power line, they went to court. A judge in Glacier County, after hearing the evidence, ruled that the Montana Alberta Tie Line did not qualify as a public utility and therefore was unable to use eminent domain to force the landowners to sell.

Mind you, the landowners had not objected to the project itself — but rather the route. They wanted two of the towers moved because one was too close to wetlands and the other went through some tepee rings.

Supposedly, owners of the tie line could not change the route to accommodate the landowners because it would have required them to start the DEQ permitting process all over again, at great cost to themselves and possibly resulting in loss of the project altogether.

As a result, the governor and various legislators devised this bill to grant public utility status to a company that is clearly operating in its own private interest.

We understand why. In this economy, jobs are more important than ever. But that does not mean property rights have to give way.

Yet, without the last-minute switched votes of a handful of Republicans, this bill would never have passed. They will surely hear from their constituents, many of whom were outraged by the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision extending the power of eminent domain.

And Gov. Schweitzer seems to be acknowledging that the solution put in place by HB 198 is not really appropriate when he belatedly asked the Legislature to add a sunset provision to the bill, causing it to expire in 2013.

It is puzzling why most legislative bodies seem to feel the best solution is always the most intrusive one. Why not just pass a bill that creates a solution to the particular problem, without creating new ones? Namely, create an exemption process which would allow a permitted power line to deviate from the approved plan, within certain narrow parameters, in order to avoid wetlands and archeological sites.

Is it too much to ask for legislators to be creative?