Provision in Energy Bill Brings Unease in G.O.P.

To conservative Republicans, especially those from the West, few things are more sacred than property rights. Their attitude is usually that the government, especially the federal government, should keep its hands off private land.
But as they negotiate a new national energy policy, House Republicans and the Bush administration want to grant the federal government substantial new power to allow the seizure of property — even if it means overruling state and local authorities — to establish corridors for high-capacity interstate power lines.
Supporters of the proposal say new transmission lines are needed to head off blackouts like the one that crippled the Northeast and parts of the Midwest last month, and that the new federal powers are needed to ensure that property owners do not stand in the way...