On the Scent

Maryland Hasn't Granted This Line the Power to Take Anyone's Land. Surveyors Showed Up With U.S. Marshals Anyway.

FREEDOM BEAGLE STAFF · AUGUST 7, 2026

Every entry in this series so far has described a taking that was already authorized. Georgia’s was certified. Virginia’s was certified. Pennsylvania’s is pending before a commission that will decide it on a statutory standard.

Maryland is different, and the difference is the point. The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project has no condemnation authority at all. It cannot take one square foot of anyone’s land today. Under Md. Code, Public Utilities § 7-207, an electric company may not begin construction of an overhead transmission line carrying more than 69,000 volts — or exercise a right of condemnation — unless it first obtains a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Public Service Commission. PSEG does not have one. The Commission is not expected to rule before February 2027.

And yet surveyors have been walking these properties since 2025, under federal court order, over the owners’ objections, and — on some parcels this spring — accompanied by United States Marshals.

By the numbers

~67–70 miles — length of the proposed line (sources differ; PSEG and county materials cite 67, other project documentation 70)
500 kV — voltage class
3 counties — Baltimore, Carroll, and Frederick
350+ — property parcels the route crosses
$424 million — project cost, awarded to PSEG by PJM in December 2023
514 acres — protected land crossed by the route, per the Chesapeake Bay Foundation
90 — properties PSEG asked a federal court for survey access to, in April 2025
June 2025 — when the U.S. District Court granted that access
March–April 2026 — when the court ordered U.S. Marshals to accompany surveyors on certain properties
February 2027 — earliest expected Maryland PSC decision on the certificate
2042 — the year through which the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel found the state would need no additional transmission

Sources: Wikipedia project record, Carroll County, RTO Insider

The same phrase, a third time

Landowners here call the line an “extension cord” for data centers in Northern Virginia’s Dulles Technology Corridor, roughly fifty miles away. That is the second time this series has recorded that exact metaphor from a farmer who had never met the farmer who used it first — Terry Snoddy said the same thing in Union County, Pennsylvania, about a different line, a different utility, and a different state. When people separated by two states and no coordination reach for the identical image, it is worth noting what they are describing: infrastructure whose burden is local and whose benefit, they believe, is not.

PJM — the regional grid operator that awarded the project — states the line addresses demand growth driven by AI and data center expansion, would support Dulles Corridor companies and Maryland data centers, and would help prevent brownouts by 2027. That is the case for it, and it is a serious one; regional grid reliability is a real public interest, not a pretext.

But Maryland’s own ratepayer advocate has said otherwise. In March 2025, the Office of People’s Counsel — the state office charged with representing utility customers — concluded that Maryland would not need additional transmission capacity through 2042. That is not an activist finding. It is a state office contradicting the necessity premise of a $424 million project, on the record, two years before the Commission is due to rule on it.

What PSEG can and cannot do right now

This distinction matters more than anything else in this entry, so it is worth stating plainly.

Cannot: condemn land, take an easement, compel a sale, or begin construction. Section 7-207 forecloses all of it until the PSC issues a certificate.

Can, and has: obtain a federal court order compelling entry onto private property for surveying. PSEG asked for access to 90 properties in April 2025. The U.S. District Court granted it in June 2025. In November 2025 the court additionally prohibited hunting on surveyed properties during fieldwork. Between March and April 2026, the court ordered U.S. Marshals to accompany surveyors onto certain parcels.

Pre-condemnation survey entry is an ordinary and long-standing feature of utility siting law — a company cannot design a route or prove its case to a commission without knowing what the ground looks like. Nothing about seeking it is improper. What is worth sitting with is the sequence: the entry came first, the authority to take is still hypothetical, and the owners who objected lost that argument in federal court before the state commission had ruled on whether the project should exist.

Why the Marshals were there

Fairness requires the full record here, because the image of federal marshals escorting utility surveyors onto farmland invites a conclusion the facts do not support.

PSEG requested U.S. Marshals protection in August 2025 after surveyors reported facing threats, including threats of gun violence. That initial request was rejected in September 2025. The court ordered Marshals to accompany surveyors on certain properties only later, in March and April of 2026.

We report this because leaving it out would let a reader assume the Marshals were a show of force against peaceable landowners. On the available record, they were a response to reported threats against workers. Threatening survey crews is not civil disobedience and this journal will not dress it up as such. It also does not resolve the underlying question, which is about authority and sequence, not about anyone’s conduct in a field.

The legal mechanism, in plain terms

Maryland routes utility condemnation through the Public Service Commission. Md. Code, Public Utilities § 7-207 bars an electric company from beginning construction of an overhead transmission line above 69,000 volts, or exercising condemnation in connection with it, without a CPCN first. Once a company holds that certificate, it must follow the same acquisition procedures that bind state agencies and county governments.

So the structure is: certificate first, condemnation second, construction third. Maryland’s ordering is clean, and notably it is the same basic ordering as Virginia’s § 56-265.2 and Pennsylvania’s § 1511(c). Three states, three statutes, one architecture — the commission decides necessity, and the taking power flows from that decision.

What that architecture does not address, in any of the three, is what a utility may compel from a landowner in the years before the commission decides. That gap is where Maryland currently sits.

What we’re not saying

Nothing here alleges PSEG, PJM, or the Public Service Commission has broken the law. PSEG has not condemned anyone’s property, and on the record we reviewed it has not attempted to — because it cannot. The survey access it obtained was granted by a federal court through ordinary process, and the Marshals’ involvement followed reported threats to workers.

We also are not saying the line is unnecessary. PJM says it is; the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel says the state’s own needs do not require it through 2042. Those are two institutional positions in genuine conflict, and the Commission — not this journal — is the body that resolves them. We take no position on the outcome.

The narrow finding is about sequence: a project without the power to take land has, for more than a year, been able to compel entry onto it. Whether that ordering is sound is a question Maryland’s legislature has not squarely answered.

Where this goes next

The Commission’s decision is not expected before February 2027, and PSEG has asked for an accelerated schedule targeting a June 2027 in-service date. All three affected county governments have passed resolutions opposing the project. Opposition organizing has been substantial — the “Stop MPRP” group passed 10,000 members by January 2025.

Separately, the 2024 Maryland General Assembly passed legislation easing data center establishment in the state by changing how backup generators are counted in Commission calculations — a reminder that the demand side of this equation is also being shaped by statute, not just the supply side.

Entry #5 closes The Grid Grab in Indiana.

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