A lot of eminent domain is pursued by developers - at least in New Jersey. They like to get rid of old houses and build luxury condos (which generally stand vacant for years). The local governments swoon at the word “ratables.” In America, where industries are not nationalized, it is private companies who often build things that are a help to the entire country or to a major city. Our NYC subways were built by independent companies, not by the city of NY. The pipeline is apparently the same thing - although wanted by the majority of Americans. It's a balancing act, no doubt.
The western third of this state is criss-crossed with pipelines, emplaced over the 65 years (roughly) the oil industry has been producing oil here. To my knowledge (and I have worked in that industry 35+ years) no one had been forced out of their home to allow someone to build a pipeline, at least not here. Then again, we aren't as crowded as NYC or New Jersey, by any metric.
IIRC, the very land that the Kelo case was over, was taken but not developed. That often seems to be the case reading about such cases, that people lose their homes to eminent domain when and where they do and the original precept that is used to deprive them of those homes turns out to be false.
Perhaps a legislative remedy would be to prohibit any developer who siezed property by eminent domain from participating in another eminent domain action in any way if they had failed to produce the benefits they had used to justify the seizure of a parcel in the past.
Imho, that might stop what appear to be capricious or even vindictive seizure actions.