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CHARLESTON -- West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday his office will lead an 18-state alliance in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that unnecessarily blocked construction on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and impedes the nation's economic growth.
The coalition's friend of the court brief argues the appeals court was inaccurate in ruling the U.S. Forest Service lacked authority to grant the Atlantic Coast Pipeline rights-of-way through forestland beneath federal trails.
"The appeal court's decision has devastating effects for West Virginia," Morrisey said. "We appreciate the Supreme Court's review and believe a decision to overturn the prior ruling will end unnecessary delays that have halted pipeline construction, kept heating fuel prices high, negatively impacted struggling working class families and been detrimental to the services they receive."
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline will transport natural gas through Harrison, Lewis, Upshur, Randolph and Pocahontas counties en route to Virginia and North Carolina.
The halting of pipeline construction has cost West Virginia jobs and lost revenue from income and property taxes, Morrisey said.
If left intact, the attorneys general argue the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling would transform 1,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail into a near-impenetrable barrier to energy development -- all due to a one-tenth mile crossing deep beneath the surface on a 600-mile pipeline.
If applied nationwide, the coalition argues the lower court decision would seal off more than 11,000 miles of federal trails from development and potentially disrupt the national power grid because of the chilling effect it could have on infrastructure investment.
The West Virginia-led brief received support from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.