The Sierra Club is reporting even more depressing news on a day that included the devastation of honeybees and no end to problems with the nation’s food supply.

Get a load of this:

Jaws dropped last week when the DOE proposed its first two so-called “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.” They covered the entirety of [Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey] and vast swaths of southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and New York. Under everyone’s favorite bill, the Energy Policy Act of the 2005, the DOE can designate such corridors for new pipelines and powerlines. And if local or state officials want to protect their wilderness area, wetland, tribal burial ground, or Civil War battlefield — TOO BAD! The federal government can approve transmission lines over local objection and even if they conflict with other federal laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act.

Best of all, once they’re approved, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been granted sweeping powers of eminent domain. So FERC can then swoop in, take your property from you, and turn it over Energy Company X so they can pad their bottom line.

Have any doubts about the motivation for this treachery? Wait, there’s more.

This provision of EPACT 2005 — never debated on the floor of the House — does include one Texas-sized loophole. As in, the whole state of Texas is excluded from this vast and likely unconstitutional power grab by the federal government.

Nuff said.