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Kansas Congressman backing bill to prevent farmland condemnation for electric transmission corridor

A Kansas Congressman is supporting a bill that would prevent the use of federal funds to condemn farmers’ private property.

Republican Tracey Mann tells Brownfield the bill is in response to proposed construction of the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC).

“When you look at potential routes for these transmission lines, where they might go, they started off looking at a 5 mile swath through a big part of our state that’s narrow to not as wide, but still this is something I’m concerned about,” he says.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed corridor would be routed from southwest Kansas through north-central and northeast Kansas, continuing through Missouri and Illinois. Mann says the Department of Energy’s phase 2 announcement of the NIETC proposal was under publicized.

“I’ve been alarmed, frustrated, concerned to see this process that the government’s been doing, talking about taking people’s personal property rights away to build power lines in our state,” he says.

The proposed bill would also prohibit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from using its authority to overrule a state regulator’s rejection of a project.

The bill is backed by U.S. Senators Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, of Kansas as well as the Kansas Farm Bureau.