The federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out two environmental permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP).

The court ruled that by “fast-tracking” two permits for the 600-mile-long natural gas pipeline through three states, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) failed in its statutory mandate to protect endangered species. The same court has previously voided other permits that appeared to rush through approvals without the full, legally required analysis of the project’s actual impacts.

An attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which is representing several groups challenging the pipeline’s permits, said, “In its rush to help this pipeline company, USFWS failed to protect species on the brink of extinction — its most important duty. This pipeline would blast through some of the last populations of these rare animals.”

SELC attorney Patrick Hunter added the pipeline company’s “permitting problems are entirely self-inflicted — it chose a risky and unreasonable route and didn’t let the Fish and Wildlife Service do its job. Dominion keeps trying to bend the law to its objectives by exerting political pressure on federal agencies instead of following the law like everyone else is required to do.”

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