Transmission Rights Row

Deck: 

Fiber optic lines expose grid companies to class action lawsuits.

Fortnightly Magazine - March 2008
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.

One of the trickiest issues confronting the electric transmission industry today is the controversy over who owns the transmission corridors that traverse the United States. Property owners are banding together and filing class-action lawsuits against utility companies they perceive as having usurped property rights without compensation.

This controversy arises from changes in technology, and the debate is being driven by certain misconceptions about the laws and policies affecting utility rights of way.

Utility companies supply electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers throughout North America using transmission corridors that connect with vast distribution networks. The companies assembled these corridors years ago by negotiating easement agreements with millions of property owners that, in effect, granted them the right to conduct business on the owner’s property. To be more precise, these agreements were designed to entitle the electric company to transmit over, under, or through someone else’s fee ownership. Once the corridors were assembled, utilities incurred substantial costs to construct electrical lines and other necessary equipment and structures on the easements to enable them to transmit electric current from the points of generation to locations for distribution.

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.