Alliance for Property Rights & Fiscal Responsibility v. City of Idaho Falls

OPINION

N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Municipalities in Idaho do not have the power to exercise eminent domain extra-territorially for the purpose of constructing electric transmission lines. Neither the Idaho Constitution nor the Idaho Legislature has expressly or impliedly given Idaho’s cities that power. Because cities in Idaho are “creature[s] of the state,” they cannot receive that power from any other source. Caesar v. State, 101 Idaho 158, 610 P.2d 517, 519 (1980). Because the City of Idaho Falls need only provide electric power at its lowest possible cost (whatever that cost may be), it…