CHEYENNE - Two years after resolving a long battle over how to handle split-estate disputes between surface owners and oil and gas developers, the two sides are now clashing over the law governing the seizure of private property for public projects.

On Monday, the Legislature's Joint Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Interim Committee will hear public comment and discuss possible changes to the state's eminent domain law. The panel will look over draft legislation that proposes a number of changes to the law.

Committee Chairman Sen. Gerald Geis, R-Worland, said the issue was raised when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that municipalities could seize homes so a private developer could put up condominiums, a hotel and office buildings. Before the ruling, the eminent domain powers were limited to seizing property for public projects, such as highways.

But in Wyoming, the initial concern about the eminent domain law being used to seize private property for private developments has evolved into a movement for seeking changes in how the law is used for public projects as well.

Landowners contend the law now leaves them at a disadvantage when facing developers of oil and gas, power lines and pipelines wielding the threat of eminent domain. Developers counter that the current law is fair and necessary in obtaining rights of way and easements to deliver Wyoming's energy resources to consumers in the state and across the nation.

With ambitious plans to build new power transmission lines across the state and new railroad tracks into northeast Wyoming, the stakes are high for both landowners and developers over any changes to the law.

The issue arises nearly two years after Wyoming rewrote its split-estate laws to give more leverage and protection to surface owners in negotiating surface-use agreements with oil and gas companies. Split estates occur when different people own the surface land and the minerals underneath.

Laurie Goodman, of the Landowners Association of Wyoming and one of those who pushed for changing the split-estates law, said she is concerned that some companies are trying to circumvent the split-estates law through use of the eminent domain law.

For example, Goodman said, some companies are using eminent domain to discharge coal-bed methane water over the surface.

"That causes some real problems for downstream property owners," she said.

Goodman's organization and others representing ranchers and farmers say rural property owners need better protection and compensation for land taken from them.

They are not seeking to take the right of eminent domain away, but they say the current law gives too much power to those using the provision.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case out of New London, Conn., caused a huge outcry over the rights of property owners in cities, and rural property owners deserve no less protection, Goodman said.

"In Wyoming, the question is, 'Are people's property rights in towns more important than people's property rights in rural areas?'," Goodman said.

George Parks, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, said he had no problem clarifying the law so long as it doesn't compromise the ability of cities and towns to build and improve infrastructure, such as streets and utilities, for the common good.

"Eminent domain is very rarely used by any Wyoming municipality," Parks said. "For all practical purposes it is a last resort kind of thing."

Dave Ditto, an attorney who has represented pipeline companies, said the draft bill in its current form would "gut the whole right of eminent domain" and would turn current law on its head.

Of particular concern to him is a provision that would allow a court jury to reverse the decisions of state and federal agencies on the need for a public improvement or facility.

"Typically, we have those agencies with the expertise to decide and approve projects," he said.

In addition, current law provides protection to make sure landowners are fairly compensated for taken land or damaged, Ditto said.

"The existing laws, if you understand them, are pretty well balanced," he said. "I don't see much that would really benefit the landowners. This may just create more problems than it fixes."