Opinion ID: 1189865
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Public Use Requirement Under the Takings Clause

Text: We must next decide whether the Path 15 Upgrade satisfies the public use requirement of the Takings Clause even though it is a partnership of public and private entities and the beneficiaries of the project arguably are the customers of privately-owned utilities, as opposed to the public at large. For over a century, the Supreme Court's public use jurisprudence has wisely eschewed rigid formulas and intrusive scrutiny in favor of affording legislatures broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power. Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469, 483, 125 S.Ct. 2655, 162 L.Ed.2d 439 (2005). It remains true, of course, that the sovereign may not take the property of A for the sole purpose of transferring it to another private party B, even though A is paid just compensation. Id. at 477, 125 S.Ct. 2655. At the same time, the Court has long abandoned any use by the public test for private-to-private transfers by eminent domain. See id. at 479-81 & nn. 7, 9, 10, 125 S.Ct. 2655 (collecting cases). `It is only the taking's purpose, and not its mechanics' ... that matters in determining public use, id. at 482, 125 S.Ct. 2655 (quoting Haw. Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229, 244, 104 S.Ct. 2321, 81 L.Ed.2d 186 (1984)), and we do not substitute [our] judgment for a legislature's judgment as to what constitutes a public use `unless the use be palpably without reasonable foundation.' Midkiff, 467 U.S. at 241, 104 S.Ct. 2321 (quoting United States v. Gettysburg Elec. Ry. Co., 160 U.S. 668, 680, 16 S.Ct. 427, 40 L.Ed. 576 (1896)). Applying these principles, we conclude that the Path 15 Upgrade satisfies the public use requirement. To begin with, the project hardly entails a private-to-private transfer at all. It is true that WAPA will initially receive only ten percent of the transmission system rights arising from the 500 kV capacity increase. Western Area Power Administration, FERC Order Accepting Letter Agreement, 99 FERC ¶ 61,306, at 62,278, 2002 WL 1308653 (June 12, 2002). However, WAPA will own the new 500 kV transmission line and associated land that is the most significant part of the transmission upgrades. Id. Further, in its 1985 appropriations and mandate to the Secretary of Energy to expand the Pacific Northwest-California Intertie, Congress specified that sufficient capacity shall be reserved ... to serve the needs of the Department of Energy laboratories and wildlife refuges in California. Pub.L. No. 99-88, tit. I, ch. IV, 99 Stat. 293, 321 (1985). In short, it is clear that Congress' purpose in authorizing the condemnation envisioned a continued proprietary and operational presence of the federal government. Moreover, to the limited extent that the project does involve a transfer of property interests among private entities, such transfer poses no constitutional difficulty. In the pursuit of what it perceives as a public use, the Congress and its authorized agencies have made determinations that take into account a wide variety of values. Berman, 348 U.S. at 33, 75 S.Ct. 98. Therefore, It is not for [the courts] to reappraise them. Id. In its 1984 authorization, Congress unambiguously expressed its intent to allow mutually beneficial power sales between the Pacific Northwest and California. 16 U.S.C. § 837g-1. In so doing, it spoke to the value it intended to pursue  i.e., facilitating the consolidation of the western electricity market. It would therefore be impermissible for us to engage, as Sawyer asks us to do, in empirical debates over the wisdom of increased access to electricity or the effectiveness of the Path 15 Upgrade. See Midkiff, 467 U.S. at 242-43, 104 S.Ct. 2321.