The Supreme Court is poised to allow a gas pipeline to pass underneath the Appalachian Trail. Experts can’t believe the case has gotten this far.
That’s a question before the Supreme Court, which last week heard oral arguments concerning the siting of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5.1 billion project that, if completed, would transport over a billion cubic feet of gas each day from West Virginia to North Carolina. The arguments were the latest in five years of legal snags for the project that has pitted two federal agencies against each other in a battle over jurisdiction and administrative oversight of federal lands.
“By design, the Appalachian Trail—like all National Park Service land—is granted the most protected status for federal lands,” Hoffmann says. “It’s hard to see this case as anything other than one federal agency trying to steamroll another one.” The answer to that question matters quite a lot, Hoffmann says. “What this ultimately does is open up the idea that subsurface areas can be considered mineral estate.”
The Mineral Leasing Act, she says, is supposed to prevent that from happening. And that has left Hoffmann and other legal scholars—including at least one of the Supreme Court justices—wondering why the court agreed to hear the case at all.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned whether the entire argument might not be moot when it comes to the completion of Atlantic Coast Pipeline.
When Dominion Energy first announced plans for the pipeline in 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission required the company to complete an environmental impact statement that included a full account of possible water issues, along with an understanding of potential damage to threatened and endangered species, such as the candy darter—a rainbow colored fish recently added to the endangered species list.
“The Forest Service was never anti-pipeline,” Thompson says. “We were always just trying to minimize adverse impacts and ensure that worst-case scenarios had been vetted.”According to Thompson and others familiar with the project, in late 2016, a high-ranking Forest Service official, issued a memo informing regional forestry staff that the pipeline would be approved as prescribed by Atlantic and on that company’s timeline.
“We were basically shut down,” says Karriker, who had authored the impact study. “The project was taken away from people at the forest level and was handled at the regional and Washington level who would go along with whatever Dominion wanted to do, up to and including changing the fact determinations I had written for several sensitive species that showed the project would impact them in a way that was not allowed by the regulations.
Given the number of outstanding violations found by the 4th Circuit Court and the clear specificity of the Mineral Leasing Act, the Supreme Court could determine it erred in agreeing to hear the case at all, Georgetown University Law professor Hope Babcock says.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
New York Governor Cuomo: Insurers must waive costs for coronavirus test - Business InsiderThe US has reported nearly 100 cases of the novel coronavirus and six deaths, and New York recently recorded its first case.
Read more »
Which U.S. States Have Confirmed Coronavirus Cases?Cases of the new coronavirus are appearing in many U.S. states, with nearly 100 confirmed to date. Here's where they are.
Read more »
Time capsule from almost 100 years ago unearthed by demolition workers in North DakotaIt was found to contain several documents of historical value to the city of Williston.
Read more »
There are now 100 cases of coronavirus in the USThere are 100 cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local governments
Read more »
President's power to can independent agency heads faces testA case being argued at the Supreme Court on Tuesday could threaten the structure of agencies that form an enormous swath of the federal government
Read more »