The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a Certificate of Convenience and Public Necessity to the Mountain Valley pipeline project in 2017, authorizing new construction of a 300-mile natural gas pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia. Several environmental and citizen groups challenged the FERC decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Among many issues raised, the petitioners argued that FERC failed to properly consider downstream impacts on climate change resulting from the combustion of gas transported by the new pipeline, as required by the Court’s 2017 decision in Sierra Club v. FERC. On February 19, 2019, the D.C. Circuit issued a short (five page) decision in the Mountain Valley case, Appalachian Voices et al v. FERC . The decision summarily dismissed all sixteen of the petitioners’ challenges to FERC’s Order.
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Continue Reading In an Unpublished Decision, D.C. Circuit Approves FERC Certificate for Mountain Valley Pipeline