Texas Court: Land Can Be Seized for $30B Bullet Train

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that Texas Central has the authority to use eminent domain to seize land to build a long-delayed $30B high-speed rail link between Dallas and Houston.

The Lone Star State’s highest court sided with the company in a 5-3 decision in a case filed in 2019 by James Miles, a Leon County resident whose property Texas Central attempted to survey.

The plaintiff’s case argued that eminent domain laws used to clear the way for railroads in Texas for more than a century did not envision bullet trains like the high-speed line Texas Central wants to build, and therefore the firm could not be classified as a railroad company.

The plaintiff also said the $30-billion project, originally scheduled to begin construction in 2020, was not in the public’s interest.

The court dismissed both arguments, ruling that Texas Central “falls within the plain language of this grant of authority, as the company was chartered for the purpose of constructing and operating an electric railway.”

“We acknowledge Miles’ well-founded policy concerns regarding the wielding of eminent domain power by private entities. However, it is not the Court’s role to second-guess the policy choices that inform our statutes or to weigh the effectiveness of their results; rather, our task is to interpret those statutes in a manner that effectuates the Legislature’s intent,” the TX Supreme Court ruling stated.

Despite the legal victory, the high-speed rail project remains mired in uncertainty, facing opposition from residents along the proposed right of way and environmental groups.

The project’s problems intensified last week with the sudden resignation of Dallas-based Texas Central CEO Carlos Aguilar, who said in a LinkedIn post that he has been “unable to align stakeholders on a common vision” for the project.

Re-Route the Route, a group lobbying against the current proposed path of the bullet train, raised a litany of concerns about the project in a statement issued after the court ruling.

“While we are deeply disappointed with the ruling, (we) will continue to educate federal, state and local officials on this project’s many failings, including private property violations, severe public hazards, adverse minority community impact, weakened flood control, significant environmental damage, financial mismanagement and more, all of which render it utterly ineligible for any taxpayer support,” Jennifer Stevens, the group’s spokesperson, told the Dallas Business Journal, in an interview. 

Economic development organizations in the region are backing the project, including the Greater Houston Partnership, which issued a statement after court ruling that said the high-speed rail project is vital to continued economic growth in the Houston metro.