AUSTIN — Officials in a rural Texas county on Tuesday erected a legal barrier that could stop a bullet train between two of Texas’ biggest cities, despite promised economic benefits for those in its path.

Grimes County will require high-speed rail lines crossing county-owned roads to first obtain a permit.  And that means showing authority from the state or federal governments to take land by eminent domain, said Grimes County Judge Ben Leman.

“If they could not demonstrate eminent domain authority, that permit will be denied,” he said.

The requirement complicates plans of Texas Central to build a 240-mile, high-speed rail line from Dallas to Houston.

The privately owned company has promised trains that will cross the state in about 90 minutes and return almost $2.5 billion to communities along its path within the next 25 years.

But the bullet train is gathering controversy, and opponents are hoping other local officials will follow the lead of Grimes County, northwest of Houston. 

“Grimes County has set the pace,” said Ellis County Commissioner Lane Grayson. “Everybody between Dallas and Houston, we are united. We are all in the same boat.”

In a statement, Texas Central said Grimes County and its 27,000 residents could be sacrificing $50 million  in tax revenues tied to the project between now and 2040. The company did not provide details of the sources of that money.

“Grimes County is taking an anti-business position,” the company said, adding that local commissioners “are showing they consider innovation and private investment an unwelcome addition to their county.”

Jeff Moseley, state vice president for the company, said Tuesday’s vote “adds an unnecessary, inefficient patchwork of regulations … to the detriment of small businesses, schools and future generations of Grimes County residents.”  

Texas Central argues that railroads have long had power to condemn land under state law for “efforts that provide for a public good and a strong economy.”

“We are building positive relationships directly with property owners, and any use of this legal authority would be as a last resort,” it said in its statement.

But Leman said railroads must have been incorporated prior to 2007 — or actively operating — in order to qualify under the law.

Since the company isn’t running trains, and incorporated in 2012, he said, “They are basically trying to operate an imaginary railroad.” 

Federal regulators recently ruled that they have no jurisdiction over the proposed intrastate line.

Grimes County landowner David Risinger is confident that Texas Central ultimately will need government subsidies to survive.

And he’s certain that the high-speed rail line would hurt him, if built, by splitting his family’s 220-acre property and rendering a large portion of it inaccessible behind an elevated track.

Risinger’s family has owned land in Ellis County, where he now pastures cattle and grows maize and cotton, since 1892. 

He’s refused to allow Texas Central surveyors onto the property. 

Risinger said the train would sound like a jet, and the company might take his house as well as the pasture and croplands.

“This deal doesn’t do anybody between Dallas and Houston any good,” he said.

The railroad’s lawsuit to access his land — along with that of about three-dozen other landowners – is pending in state court.

Leman said he plans to contact the eight other pass-through counties between Dallas and Houston to coordinate potential regulations on the line. 

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.