Bipartisan bill designed to update eminent domain law

By Amy Lavalley

A bill that would strengthen outdated eminent domain laws in the face of a proposed freight train line with a route through Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties has made its way out of the Indiana House of Representatives and into the Senate.

The measure, House Bill 1260, cleared the House of Representatives with a 95-0 vote and is expected to go before a Senate committee Monday.

The state’s eminent domain laws regarding railroads date back to 1888, said Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, who authored the bill and is chair of the Roads and Transportation Committee. The bill is co-authored in the house by Rep. Mike Aylesworth, R-Hebron; Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster; and Rep. Jim Pressel, R-LaPorte.

“They didn’t really allow a lot of protection for our citizens,” said Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, who is sponsoring the bill with Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, in the Senate.

Soliday told the Porter County Board of Commissioners in the fall that he would be working on the bill in light of Great Lakes Basin Transportation’s plans for a freight train line from Milton, Wis., into LaPorte County.

The $8 billion privately funded line would cut through the southern portions of Lake and Porter counties and has raised concerns by residents along its three-state route about loss of farmland, drainage and public safety, among other worries.

The original law stated that if a railroad had 15 investors and $50,000 or $1,000 per mile of railroad, “you could become a railroad in the state of Indiana and exercise eminent domain,” Soliday said. “That might be a little generous.”

Most significantly, he said, the old law didn’t say anything about the public.

The proposed bill, which would take effect July 1 if it makes it out of the Senate and Gov. Eric Holcomb signs it, states that any rail line must follow Indiana’s incorporation rules, and a rail line must show the end result would be good for a community.

“You must show that people in the area are going to see a benefit,” Soliday said.

As an example, Soliday said if an automaker was building a plant in Lake County and needed rail service for on-demand inventory and the plant would create 10,000 jobs, “that would be a compelling public interest.”

A privately funded rail line to benefit its stockholders “is not a compelling public interest,” he said.

The proposed bill also would bring state law in line with federal law when it comes to getting appraisals on land to be purchased for a rail project. Federal law, Soliday said, states that the minimum a property owner can be paid is the average of a series of appraisals.

Under state law, property owners couldn’t receive more than the higher of two appraisals. “Federal law really encourages you to negotiate before you go to court,” Soliday said.

The bill, Niemeyer said, would tighten the law to protect the public.

“Because there really hasn’t been a new railroad in a long time, we needed to look at this and make sure Indiana has a say in this and is protected,” he said.

Republished from Chicago Tribune.