Poll reveals voters strongly support solar energy use in the U.S.

Nine out of ten voters believe it's important for the U.S. to develop and use more solar energy, according to a new survey. The independent polling firm Hart Research Associates, found likely voters in the 2012 election overwhelmingly support solar energy and would like to see the government do more to help the industry grow in the U.S.

This is good news for solar companies in San Diego county, the region with the highest concentration of solar energy companies in the country. Especially considering the support was strong across the political spectrum with 84 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of independents, and 98 percent of Democrats agreeing that the U.S. needs more solar power. 

"American voters have spoken loud and clear – they love solar and they want more of it. Republicans, independents, and Democrats are unified in calling on Congress to increase our use of solar energy in America," said Rhone Resch, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association in a press release. 

In the survey, almost four out of five of voters said the government should provide tax credits and financial incentives to encourage the development and use of solar energy. Voters' favorable view of solar translates directly into widespread bipartisan support for federal incentives fostering solar energy. Sixty-seven percent of swing voters preferred solar above any other energy source to receive tax and financial incentives. 

The poll consisted of 1,206 U.S. voters, including a heavy sampling of swing voters, who made up up two-thirds of all polled individuals. According to Hart Research, the swing voter sample included only respondents who did not indicate a strong or consistent partisan voting history. The poll was conducted online September 4 to 9 and was commissioned by SEIA. 

Today more than 100,000 Americans work at 5,600 solar energy companies across the nation in all 50 states. The industry more than doubled the amount of solar installed in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year compared to 2011, and growth is expected to continue in the second half of 2012. 

Industry experts say the average system price of a San Diego solar system has dropped 50 percent since 2007. Innovations in system financing have made solar more affordable than ever before. Today, major U.S. brands rely on solar to keep costs low for consumers. 

According to the press release, the top 10 states for total solar electric capacity are (in descending order): California, New Jersey, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, and North Carolina.

Railroad company files condemnation suit

The second-largest railroad company in the United States, Norfolk Southern Railway Co., has filed another lawsuit to gain control of valuable land on the Wilmington Riverfront that the railroad alleges was illegally seized by the state’s inverse condemnation attorney.

The company requesting the that the state’s Superior Court set aside a 2006 condemnation judgment granted to the Delaware Department of Transportation that resulted in the state getting title to nearly two acres of ground. Alleging it was unaware about the eminent domain action involving its South Madison Street property, Norfolk Southern wants the case reopened in order to get access to an area that contains railroad tracks and billboards facing I-95 - which could bring in advertising revenue for the transportation giant.

Company representatives said a title search should have located the deed that gave the mailing address as Norfolk Southern Railway Co. in Roanoke, Va. The railroad alleges it didn’t receive a copy of the condemnation proceeding until May 4, the first documentation it says it received. 

The condemnation judgment is void because DelDOT lawyers for the eminent domain action in 2006 made “the grossly negligent misrepresentation” that a diligent search for the property owner had been done and “no known owners” found, according to company representatives. 

Norfolk Southern has insisted the judgment by Superior Court is preempted by federal law and therefore the state court lacked jurisdiction to condemn the land. The company is looking for every loophole and opportunity in state property laws that will help it get it’s hands on the terrain.

So far, the department has not commented on the matter other than to say it would be filing DelDOT’s response to the motion before a scheduled Sept. 4 hearing, according to an inverse condemnation lawyer for DelDOT. 

This is the second legal action Norfolk Southern has filed this summer.

The railroad brought suit in federal court in July after receiving a letter from DelDOT that the department would fence in a portion of the land to begin construction “no later than August 1” on parking spaces for the 14-screen cinema now under construction on an adjacent lot.

That case, which was brought against the development group behind the cinema project, including the Riverfront Development Corp. and Buccini/Pollin Group Inc., is now working through the court. DelDOT is not a party to that lawsuit.

Keystone pipeline re-routed, activists continue blockade at Texas site

The battle over the controversial Keystone oil pipeline continues after TransCanada Corp said they will avoid constructing on the Nebraska Sandhills, a fragile region of prairie and sand dunes that is home to various plants and wildlife, with thousands of ponds and lakes.

Earlier in the year President Barack Obama delayed a decision on the pipeline, citing environmental concerns over the pipeline’s planned route near a major aquifer and the Sandhills in Nebraska.

“Based on feedback from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and the public, we have refined our proposed routing,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer, said in a press release.

Regardless, environmental activists have vowed to continue battling the pipeline and chained themselves to bulldozers in Texas last Wednesday, temporarily stopping route-clearance work TransCanada, meanwhile, has pressed forward. The company came out Wednesday with the proposed new routing.

Environmental concerns are only part of the controversy that has been brewing over the Keystone pipeline, which is being constructed to transport tar sands oil to texas refineries. To build such a massive project through the heartland of North America, TransCanada has slowly been acquiring property rights to build each section of the pipeline, sometimes employing state power to overtake private property through eminent domain, and paying property owners through condemnation compensation.

The new route will avoid some of the areas about which residents and the state Department of Environmental Quality had expressed their greatest concern. Among them are a wellhead protection area in the town of Clarks and other areas not technically within the Sandhills but which have the same sandy, erodible soils with thin topsoil that are characteristic of the Sandhills.

A public affairs official with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality said he expected the state to publish maps of the new route on its website later on Wednesday. Construction on the 700,000 barrels per day southern part of the line, renamed the Gulf Coast project, has already begun after Obama gave his support for that section.

The Gulf Coast project will drain a glut of crude in the U.S. midsection fed mostly by the oil boom in North Dakota.

In addition to submitting the supplemental review to Nebraskan officials, the company says it will also provide an environmental report to the State Department on Friday. The northern section of the line needs approval from the State Department because it crosses the national border.

California Lt. Gov. urges fed to probe eminent domain threats

California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom is asking the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate what he calls "threats" against cities in the state that are considering the use of eminent domain laws to revive their struggling housing markets.

Several Golden State communities have been considering the government takeover of underwater mortgages as a solution to the lingering housing crises, a move many eminent domain attorney experts say could work, but a recent report by Reuters said Wall Street investment firms and federal agencies have been bullying California communities that were considering the plan.

The whole idea was proposed by Mortgage Resolution Partners, a San Francisco-based organization run by Steve Gluckstern. Under the plan, local governments would evoke eminent domain laws to seize performing underwater mortgages, restructure the loans and resell them to investors tied to Mortgage Resolution Partners, which would receive a fee for the transaction. 

Apparently, this alternative method of dealing with the housing crisis has upset some big players in the financial world. Newsom sent a letter on Monday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking federal prosecutors to investigate any attempts by Wall Street investors and government agencies to "boycott" California communities that are considering such moves.

"I am most disturbed by threats leveled by the mortgage industry and some in the federal government who have coercively urged local governments to reject consideration" of eminent domain," he wrote in a letter.

The epicenter of the debate, San Bernardino County, is located east of Los Angeles, has set up a joint authority that is looking into the idea of using eminent domain to forcibly purchase distressed mortgages. Rather than evict homeowners through foreclosure, the public-private entity would offer residents new mortgages with reduced debts.

Newsom said in the letter on Monday that while he is not endorsing the use of eminent domain at this time, he wants communities in California to be able to "explore every option" for solving their mortgage burdens "without fear of illegal reprisal by the mortgage industry or federal government agencies."

According to eminent domain lawyer professionals, Governments typically use eminent domain to seize properties to build highways and other public projects. The proposal to use it to help distressed homeowners has already rankled some on Wall Street who invest in mortgage-backed securities and the real estate market.

Texas judge rules Keystone pipeline has eminent domain

TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the Keystone XL pipeline can take over land owned by independent Texas farmers, a county judge has ruled. In a short ruling sent from his iPhone, Judge Bill Harris of Lamar County Court upheld TransCanada’s condemnation lawyer of a 50-foot strip of land across Julia Trigg Crawford’s ranch property. The pipeline is being built to carry oil from Canada to Texas refineries.

A defiant Crawford said plans to appeal the ruling. “We may have lost this one battle here in Paris, Texas, but we are far from done,” she said in a written statement. “I will continue to proudly stand up for my own personal rights, the property rights of my family, and those of other Texans fighting to protect their land.”

The ruling by Judge Bill Harris removes yet another potential obstacle for TransCanada, which already has permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for the southern leg of the pipeline, which starts in Cushing, Okla., and runs to Port Arthur, Texas. TransCanada has said it will start building as soon as possible.

In March, President Obama endorsed the construction of the southern leg of the pipeline. He said it would alleviate a supply bottleneck at Cushing, where the benchmark price of oil is set for the U.S. market.

The ruling is the latest legal victory for TransCanada, whose plan to transport heavy oil sands crude through a 1,600-kilometer pipeline across the United States to Texas Gulf Coast refineries has been mired in controversy nearly every step of the way.

But some landowners and environmental groups have been building a campaign to put a halt to construction because of the threat a petroleum leak might pose to rivers, wetlands and humans.

Crawford had asserted that the Keystone XL pipeline was not entitled to eminent domain attorney because the pipeline would not be a common carrier, open to a variety of oil companies. She said that as a private project, it needed to negotiate rights of way without compelling landowners to enter agreements.

The Keystone project took a political tone when Republicans in Congress forced a two-month deadline on President Barack Obama to sign off on the international pipeline. Mr. Obama rejected TransCanada’s proposed route earlier this year, suggesting it direct the pipeline around a sensitive aquifer in Nebraska’s Sandhills region. But he encouraged the company to pursue in the meantime a shorter project from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast.