Electric utilities would gain rights to use land for older power lines

An electric utility would receive a nonexclusive legal right to use land for an existing electricity delivery system and reconnect existing pole attachments. The rule covers overhead power lines and related structures serving an electricity user, including a person whose land the system crosses. The utility must have installed the system on or before January 1, 2006. The system must be visibly installed so later owners have actual or legal notice that it is on the property. Use must be continuous and uninterrupted, although a change, stoppage, or loss of power lasting no more than one year would not count as an interruption. No valid written agreement may already establish a different easement for the system. The act would apply beginning July 1, 2026, subject to the required notice before the easement is created.

The utility could rebuild, change phases, maintain, repair, and clear hazardous or potentially hazardous vegetation around the existing system. Access would generally stay within the easement, which would follow historical use and could extend no more than 30 feet in any direction from the existing line or equipment. If normal access is dangerous or heavily blocked, reasonable alternate access could be included while minimizing harm to the landowner when reasonably possible. The easement would not change existing written easements or other agreements. Use could not materially increase the land's burden beyond historic use or normal development, except for reasonable growth serving nearby or local uses; industrial and manufacturing increases in electricity use would not qualify. The easement would be considered abandoned after more than three straight years of nonuse unless the landowner or predecessor agreed to the nonuse. These rights and limits would apply after an easement is established under the act.