Court Opinion

ID: 9734429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:34:38.757468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.513835
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I agree with the conclusions reached by the majority opinion. The matter of need *150appears to be the overriding issue with which the landowners are concerned. Although I agree with the majority opinion that our statutes do not evidence a clear legislative intent that the PSC consider need in issuing a certificate of corridor compatibility, it appears that under the statutory scheme set forth in Chapter 49-22, N.D. C.C., no determination of need by any public body, even a public body in the State or nation to be served by the transmission line, is required before the PSC and the landowners of this State are required to go through the time and effort to establish a corridor for the transmission line. Apparently any applicant may initiate the process without an official determination of need having been made. Thus in this instance it was only shortly before oral arguments were heard in this court — long after the initial application for a corridor had been filed, hearings had been held by the PSC, and an appeal taken to district court from the decision of the PSC — that the Nebraska Public Service Commission determined the transmission line was needed to provide electrical service in that State. We have not been informed whether or not the province of Manitoba has made that determination.
Although I agree that our present statutory scheme does not require the PSC to look into the issue of need, I also understand the concern of the landowners that some public agency, if only in the jurisdiction to be served by the transmission line, should be required to make that determination prior to the full implementation in this State of the procedures necessary to establish a corridor for the transmission line. Improbable though it may be, it appears that under our statutory scheme if our PSC has issued the required certificates an applicant could begin to acquire easements, through the eminent-domain process if necessary, before the need for the line had ever been officially determined. Perhaps if the need for the line in the jurisdiction to be served by it had been officially determined prior to the hearings before the PSC, the issue of whether or not the North Dakota PSC should consider need would not have been so sensitive.