They take land to sell to developers to build strip malls, luxury condos or mixed use buildings (whichever happens to be politically fashionable that minute) often enough that taking it for an actual utility should be no issue.
The problem is that you have a bunch of people who are militantly against anything fossil fuel because it's part of their political identity who get their politicians to block any fossil fuel utility project.
Sure, fossil fuels aren't good in the long term but only an idiot would deny that having more natgas available cheaply resulting in less power being generated by and fewer people heating their house with oil is a significant improvement over the status quo.
The problem is that you have a bunch of people who are militantly against anything fossil fuel because it's part of their political identity who get their politicians to block any fossil fuel utility project.
Sure, fossil fuels aren't good in the long term but only an idiot would deny that having more natgas available cheaply resulting in less power being generated by and fewer people heating their house with oil is a significant improvement over the status quo.