Power Grab in the Piedmont: How Wes Moore Is Letting Out-of-State Interests Bulldoze Maryland Property Rights
As hundreds of Maryland families brace for the bulldozers of Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), one man has the power to stand up for their rights—and he's sitting on his hands.
Governor Wes Moore, the media darling with a smile as polished as his press releases, has once again failed to protect Marylanders from the creeping overreach of corporate and regulatory power. The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP)—a massive, 70-mile, 500,000-volt transmission line cutting through Baltimore, Carroll, and Frederick counties—is shaping up to be one of the biggest land grabs in modern state history. And Moore? He’s offering platitudes, not protection.
Moore's "Grave Concern" Isn't Leadership—It's Cowardice
Despite the fact that nearly 400 properties are in the crosshairs of PSEG’s high-voltage ambitions, Moore has done little more than mutter vague “grave concerns.” Where is the formal opposition? Where is the executive order halting this madness until the state can guarantee that Maryland’s rural families aren’t being sacrificed for the convenience of Virginia’s booming data center industry?
Instead of taking action, Moore has abdicated responsibility to the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC)—a body more known for rubber-stamping utility projects than for defending the public interest.
Let’s be clear: the MPRP is not about helping Marylanders keep their lights on. It’s about helping PSEG and PJM Interconnection serve corporate tech giants and Virginia’s insatiable appetite for server farms, all while trampling property rights here in Maryland.
From Property Rights to Eminent Domain: A Governor's Silence Becomes Complicity
Moore’s refusal to intervene has paved the way for federal courts to hand PSEG sweeping access to private land. U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson, relying on Maryland’s flimsy Real Property § 12-111, greenlit a legal maneuver that lets surveyors tape a 24-hour notice to your door and walk onto your land with the force of law. That’s not how a free state operates—it’s how a banana republic treats its farmers.
Even worse, PSEG has now filed a second lawsuit to target over 200 additional landowners for forced access. Where’s Moore? Still mumbling from behind his talking points.
If the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds this legal precedent, it won't stop with MPRP. Moore’s inaction now means any future out-of-state utility can come knocking—or rather, barging—through your property.
Protecting the Land—While Moore Protects His Political Brand
While Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins has taken a bold stand by refusing to help PSEG enforce survey access, Moore has yet to lift a finger. Not a single executive order. No state-led environmental review. No public task force. Just empty rhetoric while Marylanders are sued in federal court for the crime of wanting to keep strangers off their land.
Compare Moore’s passivity with the growing grassroots movement led by Stop MPRP, Inc., where regular citizens like Joanne Frederick are doing the job our Governor won’t. Landowners are lawyering up, documenting property conditions, and intervening in PSC proceedings—all without a hint of meaningful support from Annapolis.
And yet Moore wants Maryland to believe he’s a champion of the “little guy.”
What Could—and Should—Be Done
Let’s spell it out for Governor Moore and his advisors:
Issue a moratorium on the MPRP until a full independent review of the project’s necessity and environmental impact is completed.
Demand that PSEG explore true alternatives—like co-locating lines on existing infrastructure—before bulldozing through conservation lands and youth camps.
Support legislative reforms to strengthen landowner protections against eminent domain abuse, especially when Marylanders are paying the price for someone else’s electricity.
Stand up to the PSC and force transparency and accountability in how “public convenience” is being defined—and who really benefits.
Moore’s failure to do any of this sends a message loud and clear: he’s more concerned with pleasing green-energy lobbyists and regional grid operators than defending the property rights, dignity, and generational livelihoods of his own constituents.
The Real Cost of Silence
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project isn’t just about power lines—it’s about power. And right now, it’s abundantly clear that power is flowing away from everyday Marylanders and into the hands of unelected regulators, out-of-state corporations, and federal judges.
Wes Moore had a chance to be the kind of governor who protects the people. Instead, he’s become the kind who protects the process—no matter how corrupt or coercive it becomes.
Maryland deserves better than silence, lawsuits, and corporate collusion disguised as progress. If Wes Moore won’t stop this power grab, then the people of Maryland will have to do it themselves—one appeal, one protest, and one vote at a time.