Mountain Valley Pipeline Endangered Species Rehearing Bid Denied

Mountain Valley Pipeline was handed another setback Friday after the full Fourth Circuit declined to reconsider a panel’s finding that the federal government’s endangered species review for the project was inadequate.

Mountain Valley told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that the panel “flyspecked” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s biological opinion for the project.

The court said in February that the agency failed to dive deeper into activities that harm Roanoke logperch and candy darter. But this failure to provide a “richer and more textured” review doesn’t mean the agency’s analysis was inadequate, the pipeline argued. ...