SAN FRANCISCO — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are leading a 17-state coalition asking a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court ruling that brought pipeline construction to a grinding halt nationwide.
The coalition’s brief, filed September 23 with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, argues a federal district judge inappropriately transformed a case challenging one project into a nationwide injunction that affected new oil and gas pipelines in every state regardless of the project’s length, purpose or minimal environmental effect.
The coalition won a stay in July at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, its member states seek the reversal of the lower court ruling.
Morrisey
“Such overreach by a federal district judge cannot stand,” Morrisey said. “Aside from the ruling being overly broad and deeply flawed as a matter of fairness and court procedure, it presents serious consequences for our national economy and causes unnecessary instability and disruption for the dedicated pipeliners of West Virginia as well as those who depend upon their success.”
The original lawsuit focused on a permit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. The coalition argues the district court order inappropriately used that issue to strike down all projects that employed the same permitting process nationwide.
That decision led developers to halt construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline – an announcement that came one day before the Supreme Court’s stay. Morrisey says the end of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project will cost West Virginians more than 1,500 jobs.
The coalition contends the district court ruling, if allowed to stand, would make infrastructure projects significantly more costly and time-consuming — and potentially render some unfeasible, thus eliminating an untold number of jobs.
The West Virginia- and Texas-led brief carries support from attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case number 20-35412