U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar filed an amicus brief in support of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s emergency request.
The request asks Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to intervene after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia issued a stay on construction of a section of the pipeline.
A provision in the debt ceiling bill enacted last month approved the pipeline and transferred jurisdiction over it to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
However, the Richmond-based Fourth Circuit later issued a stay blocking construction after environmentalists argued Congress overstepped its authority.
The pipeline is vocally supported by Manchin but has been fiercely opposed by many of the Biden administration’s allies in the environmentalist movement, including the Wilderness Society, which filed the lawsuit that led to the stay.
“If completed, [the pipeline] would disproportionately subject low-income and rural communities to the threat of toxic pollution, running counter to the president’s recent executive order on environmental justice,” the organization said in a statement in May.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
