Supreme Court Poised to Rebuff Environmental Challenge to Pipeline Crossing Appalachian Trail – IOTW Report

Supreme Court Poised to Rebuff Environmental Challenge to Pipeline Crossing Appalachian Trail

WFB: The Supreme Court on Monday seemed unwilling to block a planned natural gas pipeline that will run from West Virginia under the Appalachian Trail to the Eastern Seaboard.

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal agency did not have the authority to issue a special-use permit for pipeline construction under the Appalachian Trail. The government and energy companies responsible for the project warn that the ruling effectively turns the trail into a barrier that walls off the East Coast from resource-rich lands in the interior of the country.

“There is no basis in any federal statute to conclude that Congress intended to convert the Appalachian Trail into a 2,200-mile barrier separating critical natural resources from the Eastern Seaboard,” the energy companies told the justices in legal briefs.
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8 Comments on Supreme Court Poised to Rebuff Environmental Challenge to Pipeline Crossing Appalachian Trail

  1. a barrier that walls off the East Coast from resource-rich lands in the interior of the country

    WINNING!

    Fret not, concern trolls! We’ll ship them some Wuhan blankets. To keep warm.

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  2. But it’s OK to have I-80 cross it with fuel tankers? Looking at the map from Georgia to Maine https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/appalachian-trail-map it’s pretty easy to see what a mess it would be if the NPS decided absolutely NO hazardous materials were transported through this corridor.
    But the National Park Service was dumb enough to close down the Washington D.C. monuments and all the parks during Obama’s government shutdown.
    Just another part of the deep state toilet swamp that needs a good flushing.

    I love all this winning.

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  3. Interestingly the ATC (Appalachian Trail Conservancy) neither opposes nor supports the pipeline crossing the AT. Deciding to remain neutral on the issue. It is other environmental groups that are part of the court case.

    From an article on NPR website”
    “.. Those who manage the Appalachian Trail are not involved in the litigation of the case. Instead, they say it has become a football between two sides: the pipeline company and the environmental groups who oppose it. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the private organization that oversees the day-to-day management of the trail, is not involved because – perhaps surprisingly – the group does not oppose the pipeline…”

    My family has a vacation house in Pocahontas County, WV. About 30 miles from the Va. border. Last summer there was a large area of several acres 20 miles south of our house filled with heavy equipment owned by the pipeline construction companies. They were shutdown, and last fall all or most of the equipment had been removed.

    Last summer while there I listened to an interview on the radio with groups opposed to the pipeline. They described flying drones over the pipeline work areas, filming the work. Looking for any type of violation they could use to shutdown the work. They succeeded. Even if the SCOTUS rules in favor of the pipeline construction. My bet is the opposition groups will continue the same tactics. Film a worker with his hardhat off to take a drink of water – report a violation to OSHA. See some muddy water flowing down stream, call the EPA.

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