FERC halts construction of Mountain Valley Pipeline after court ruling

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Friday ordered a stop to construction of the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline after a federal appeals court threw out permits that allowed the project to build through less than four miles of national forest land. On July 27, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed permits granted by the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service in response to a challenge from environmental groups. FERC stopped construction because the decision may mean the project will have to be rerouted, it wrote in a letter to the developers.FERC last week also separately denied requests to review its initial approval of the project, but warned in its stop-work order that Mountain Valley "may need to revise substantial portions of the project route across non-federal lands, possibly requiring further authorizations and environmental review."