Supreme Court Rejects Environmentalists' Pleas, Green-Lights Pipeline Construction
The Supreme Court has allowed construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline to resume Thursday.
The court granted an application to vacate all stays against the pipeline’s construction Thursday in response to an emergency petition from the project’s developers, according to a court order.
The order temporarily overrides orders from lower courts which mandated that construction halt while various legal challenges against it play out.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline stretching about 303 miles between northwestern West Virginia and southern Virginia, according to a website for Jim Justice, governor of West Virginia.
The Supreme Court’s move represents a major success for Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has been a strong supporter of the pipeline.
Manchin previously slammed the Fourth Circuit for issuing a stay against a section of the pipeline’s construction in mid-July, calling the move “unlawful.”
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to fast-track the pipeline’s construction as a part of June’s debt-ceiling deal. Their agreement, reflected in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, instructed all relevant federal agencies to issue all outstanding permits for the pipeline so that construction could proceed to completion.
“The Supreme Court has spoken and this decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one,” Manchin said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I am relieved that the highest court in the land has upheld the law Congress passed and the President signed.”
The Biden administration sided with the pipeline’s developers Wednesday, telling the Supreme Court that it should vacate the stays against construction from lower courts.
Environmentalists have vociferously opposed the pipeline’s construction.
They have targeted Manchin for his support of the pipeline and fossil fuel interests.
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