How southern communities are standing up against the powerful pipeline.
Despite the outrageous inclusion of an attempted Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) permitting mandate as an unwelcome rider in legislation raising the federal debt ceiling, the construction of the MVP is still not a sure thing. Opponents of the MVP’s clear environmental damages are challenging the constitutionality of that action.
Environmental groups including the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, and Appalachian Voices are asking the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a stay of continued work on the pipeline while it considers their challenge. The MVP corporation has asked the Court to dismiss the ongoing challenges to its completion. The pipeline opponents argue that a Congressional action which requires federal courts to reach a particular result in an ongoing legal case is a violation of the separation of powers provisions in the United States Constitution.
“Mountain Valley could not build their pipeline in compliance with the law, so they appealed to Congress to interfere with the courts, skirting both our legal system and Constitution,” said Chase Huntley, VP of Strategy and Policy at The Wilderness Society. “The MVP rider buried in the Fiscal Responsibility Act attempts to ram through the pipeline, forcing it onto communities who have spoken out against its devastating impacts for nearly a decade. Because bedrock environmental laws stood in the pipeline’s path, Mountain Valley convinced Congress to reach beyond its powers and decide in Mountain Valley’s favor, circumventing the courts. We’re fighting to make sure our challenge to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management’s approvals for the pipeline to cross the Jefferson National Forest has its rightful day in court.”
The outcome of this challenge has potential direct repercussions in North Carolina as well. The NC Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had rejected permits to construct the Southgate pipeline extension of the MVP from the Virginia state line to near Burlington, partially on grounds that it was a premature request while the main MVP itself remained stalled out. If the MVP construction moves forward, then the likelihood of MVP corporation reviving its Southgate construction effort is strong. Multiple landowners and communities would again be exposed to MVP efforts to seize their land for pipeline construction.
