Supreme Court allows construction on Mountain Valley Pipeline to proceed
Breanne Deppisch
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The Supreme Court on Thursday vacated judicial stays on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, siding with the developers of the 303-mile natural gas pipeline and allowing construction to proceed.
The order vacates two stays of construction handed down earlier this month by the Fourth Circuit Court. Pipeline developers filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in response, arguing the stays violated the text of the debt ceiling bill signed by President Joe Biden in June, which shielded the project from further legal challenges by ordering the approval of all remaining permits necessary to finish the pipeline and limiting judicial review of those permits to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who backed provisions of the law meant to ease the pipeline’s construction, praised the news on Twitter, saying he was “relieved” by the court’s decision.
“The Supreme Court has spoken and this decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one,” he said. “I am relieved that the highest court in the land has upheld the law Congress passed and the President signed.”
Construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline had been stalled for years by a series of court delays before it was expedited in June under the legislation.
That law directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize the completion of the pipeline, including ordering the approval of all remaining permits necessary to finish the pipeline, and to prevent any litigation that challenged the pipeline.
Environmental groups, which have long opposed the pipeline, challenged the provision as unconstitutional and a violation of congressional authority.
Congress “cannot pick winners and losers in pending litigation by compelling finds or results,” the Wilderness Society and other environmental groups argued in a Supreme Court filing earlier this month.
Manchin and the rest of the West Virginia congressional delegation have pushed for the completion of the pipeline to improve national energy security, and Manchin filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in support of the project earlier this month.
In submitting the amicus curiae brief, Manchin reiterated his frustration with the court decision halting construction, which he described earlier this month as “‘unlawful.”
Equitrans, the lead developer behind the pipeline project, said earlier this month that MVP is roughly 90% complete, and could be completed within the year if the stays were lifted.
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The 303-mile natural gas pipeline runs from Manchin’s home state of West Virginia to southern Virginia, and once fully operational, is expected to have a capacity of 2 billion cubic feet per day.