A Mountain Valley Pipeline Miracle

The Mountain Valley Pipeline’s legal saga may be coming to a close at long last after the Supreme Court on Thursday vacated a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals order halting construction. This is a welcome rebuke to willful lower-court judges and a bow to Congress’s clear statement in law.

The 304-mile pipeline to deliver natural gas from Appalachia to the Southeast was first proposed nine long years ago. While the pipeline is now 94% complete, its costs have since doubled to $6.6 billion amid legal snarls. The same three Fourth Circuit judges— Stephanie Thacker, James Wynn and Roger Gregory —have repeatedly struck down permits.

Enter Congress, which inserted a provision in the debt-ceiling legislation in June requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to issue all necessary permits and exempting government approvals from judicial review. The law also vested the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with exclusive jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to the law.

Congress couldn’t have been clearer: Courts were prohibited from reviewing any agency approval “whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to” the law’s enactment and “any lawsuit pending in a court.” The D.C. Circuit “shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over any claim alleging the invalidity” of the measure or “an action is beyond the scope of authority conferred” by it.

Nonetheless, environmental groups challenged the pipeline’s federal permits, as they always do, arguing that the debt-ceiling measure is unconstitutional because it allegedly mandates “legal victory” for the pipeline—never mind that Congress can restrict the jurisdiction of lower courts. The three Fourth Circuit judges again ordered a halt to construction.

Pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream Corp. appealed to the High Court, warning that even a short pause on construction would prevent the pipeline’s completion in time to “deliver natural gas to the customers who need it this winter.” The Biden Administration submitted a brief arguing the Fourth Circuit’s conclusions are “demonstrably incorrect.”

The High Court’s order on Thursday effectively removes the final legal barriers to the pipeline’s completion. But note to Congress: It shouldn’t take nine years to build a pipeline. Reforming the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act is needed to avoid similar fiascoes.