Lee Heidhues 7.12.2023
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin staunch anti-environmentalist, bought and paid for by the fossil fuels industry, must have sprung a leak this past Monday.
The US Fourth Circuit put the brakes, at least temporarily, on Pipeline Joe’s climate killing crusade to construct the Mission Valley Pipeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Valley_Pipeline
Pipeline Joe wants to believe he’s rid himself of those meddling Federal judges and environmentalists after he strong armed Congress to get the judiciary out of his pet project.
A political payoff to his campaign contributors.
Not so fast, Joe.
Excerpted from The New York Times 7.12.2023
A federal court in Richmond has halted construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, setting off a battle with Congress that could end up at the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, released a pair of rulings on Monday and Tuesday to stop work on the project, which is intended to carry natural gas about 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia across nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands before ending in Virginia.
Environmentalists, Democratic members of the Virginia congressional delegation and some constitutional law experts argue that by directing a change in courts, Congress has violated the separation of powers clause in the Constitution.
That was notable because Congress had moved jurisdiction over the pipeline last month from the court in Richmond, where environmentalists have found some success in their decade-long fight, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It was a highly unusual provision that was tucked into legislation that had nothing to do with pipelines — the law to raise the debt ceiling.
Congress also included provisions to expedite construction of the pipeline and insulate it from judicial review. Those elements were added as a concession to Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat whose vote has been crucial to President Biden’s domestic agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/climate/mountain-valley-pipeline-courts.html
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