Mountain Valley Pipeline developer asks Supreme Court to intervene on appeals court order

The company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Pennsylvania-based Equitrans Mainstream, has filed an application to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking an emergency stay of an appeals court order halting construction.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, earlier this week, voted to grant the motion of The Wilderness Society and the Southern Environmental Law Center to stop construction on the pipeline, which had been controversially greenlighted in the debt-ceiling deal passed last month, as the court sorted through challenges to the legality of permit approvals.

Equitrans Mainstream issued a statement after the ruling expressing its disappointment at the appeals court issuing the stay “with no explanation” that the company said “defies the will and clear intent of a bipartisan Congress and this administration in passing legislation to expedite completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which was deemed to be in the national interest.”

The provision pushing the project forward was aimed at approving the required permitting needed for the 303-mile pipeline that is to stretch from West Virginia through Virginia into North Carolina and was supposed to help developers avoid lawsuits challenging the project.

That language was inserted by the Biden administration side of the deal to appease West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who insisted on the Mountain Valley Pipeline provision as a condition for him voting for the bigger debt-ceiling deal.

Manchin was most unhappy after word of the Fourth Circuit ruling came down.

“The law passed by Congress and signed by the president is clear — the Fourth Circuit no longer has jurisdiction over Mountain Valley Pipeline’s construction permits,” Manchin said. “This new order halting construction is unlawful, and regardless of your position on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, it should alarm every American when a court ignores the law.”

Sarah Francisco, director of the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center, issued an equally fiery statement on the move by Equitrans Mainstream to challenge the Fourth Circuit Court ruling.

“The rider stuck in the debt ceiling deal to fast-track the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline is not just bad policy, it’s unconstitutional,” Francisco said. “Congress violated the separation of powers—a bedrock principle of American democracy—when it tried to pick winners and losers in pending cases involving the pipeline. SELC and The Wilderness Society stand ready to file a response in the United States Supreme Court to defend an independent judiciary and the right of communities to have their day in court.”