Mountain Valley Pipeline Building Blocked by Fourth Circuit (1)

Construction of a portion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest was temporarily blocked by the Fourth Circuit on Monday pending an environmental group’s petition to review the Bureau of Land Management’s decision granting a permit to the controversial energy infrastructure project.

It’s unclear whether the panel has the authority to block construction after Congress authorized project permits and explicitly limited judicial review as part of debt limit negotiations last month with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Mountain Valley Pipeline’s developers and several government agencies opposed the Wilderness Society’s motion to stay construction, arguing the ...