Northern Pass: Still Ignoring the Overarching Reason for Opposition - Granite Grok

Northern Pass: Still Ignoring the Overarching Reason for Opposition

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“The only people who support the use of eminent domain for private development are cities that use it, developers and businesses that benefit from it and planners who plan it. Everyone else hates it.” – Dana Berliner, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice

 Yesterday’s Union Leader featured, Another View of Why New Hampshire should be open to Northern Pass project, penned by Ms. Julia Frayer, Northern Pass hired gun.

 Julia Frayer, Managing Director of London Economics, hailing from Boston’s Atlantic Avenue Office writes in the UL, “There has been very little attention paid to the specific benefits the project will deliver to New Hampshire and New England and why this project is “needed.” Retained by Northern Pass for analysis of the New England energy market and the project’s potential impact, Frayer deflects the core issue that curries opposition and attempts to redirect the conversation back to the issues most favorable to Northern Pass.

 Frayer asserts, that little focus has been placed on the benefits the project will deliver to New Hampshire and New England and why this project is “needed.” To the contrary. There has been no notable opposition to what Northern Pass, Hydro-Quebec or any other entity having a say in this project, seeks to do. When we pare away the concerns of eminent domain, grabbing land by governmental force and legally sanctioning what amounts to nothing more than government-sanctioned land stealing, the opposition to the project goals shrinks exponentially. A very minute few oppose power companies.

 Frayer details five reasons why consideration should be given to the project, yet none of those include the tangible losses of private property and arbitrary taking of privately owned land. The reasons are, 1) low carbon-sourced power; 2) The Hydro-Quebec financed project will forgo consumer subsidies, not costing the public money; 3) The integrated New England Wholesale power market creates collective market benefits in the form of cost saving to New Hampshire; 4) An insular effect against “game-changing” events that typically lead to higher consumer electricity costs; and, 5) Increased diversity in the grid, resulting in more reliable delivery to consumers. Yay! all very good stuff! But Frayer is still in the wrong forest.

 The point missed is that Big Power is not in the business of being accommodating to the community or the landowners. That is their history, their track record and result. Big power only acquires property for their exclusive use, whether through easements, leases or eminent domain, and to the exclusion of all others.  National Grid, for example has in place a policy that all persons on land owned or controlled by them, that are not employees of National Grid, are reported to Police as “Trespassers.” (as articulated in Hill v. National Grid). Big Power controls how land and anything in proximity that they perceive to have an effect, is used. They may exercise a right to the owner off his or her own land if interest serves them to do so in the form of lease and easement restrictions that likely vest some future property right against the owners interests. 

 Nothing that Julia Frayer writes can be disputed. She is correct all the way down the line. But she fails to address the seminal issue of what brings the current wide scale opposition to this project. This issue is a mere redux of the CU project controversy from the 1970’s that took place in Pope County Michigan and the power company is a mere leopard that has not changed its’ spots. 

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