By KATE MISHKIN
Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline may start up again, federal regulators decided Wednesday.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered a halt to construction on the 300-mile-long project earlier this month after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruledthat the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service had sidestepped environmental rules in green-lighting the project.
In the Aug. 3 Stop Work Order, FERC said there was no reason to believe the Forest Service and BLM would ultimately comply with the court’s ruling and issue new rights-of-way. If those agencies designed different routes, that would require more authorizations and reviews. So, until those decisions were made, construction had to stop, FERC said. Continuing work “poses the risk of expending substantial resources and substantially disturbing the environment.”
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