Lawyers for Baker Botts in Houston and Austin scored a huge courtroom victory Tuesday for Houston based Kinder Morgan.
A state district court judge in Austin tossed out a lawsuit that sought to stop a Kinder Morgan pipeline from being routed through the Texas Hill Country.
In a Tuesday afternoon decision, Judge Lora Livingston with the 261st State District Court in Austin dismissed all claims made against the Permian Highway Pipeline, a $2 billion project to move 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Permian Basin of West Texas to the Katy Hub near Houston.
Two landowners, a trust, the City of Kyle and Hays County sued Kinder Morgan, one of its subsidiaries, the Railroad Commission of Texas and five agency executives over the 423-mile pipeline in April.
Livingston heard testimony from both sides of the case during a two-day hearing in late May.
After nearly four weeks of reviewing evidence and testimony, the judge sided with Kinder Morgan and the Railroad Commission.
In a statement, Kinder President of Natural Gas Pipelines Tom Martin said the company was pleased with the ruling.
“The court’s finding validates the process established in Texas for the development of natural gas utility projects, as well as the steps we have taken to comply with that process,” Martin said. “We will continue to engage all stakeholders as we work to complete PHP.”
The Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition, a landowner rights group that paid the legal fees for the lawsuit, issued a statement saying that the group respects the judge’s ruling but disagrees with it.
“We continue to believe the Texas constitution does not allow for the delegation of this awesome power to a private company without oversight,” the group said. “This issue should be heard by an appellate court. We are weighing our options for an appeal and planning additional legal actions in other venues to challenge this severely problematic route.”
During the hearing, Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell testified that the pipeline’s proposed route would go through several future subdivisions where developers plan to build as many as 20,000 homes. The city, he said, already spent millions of dollars adding water, sewage and electrical services to those sites.
The Baker Botts team that represented Kinder Morgan Texas Pipeline, LLC and Permian Highway Pipeline, LLC included Bill Kroger, Jim Barkley, and Amy Hefley from the firm’s Houston office, and Gavin R. Villareal and Thomas R. Phillips from the firm’s Austin office.
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