WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Unions representing pipeline workers have thrown their support behind the construction of a pipeline that will cross a national forest and under the Appalachian Trail.
The unions, representing pipefitters, welders, engineers, teamsters, and others filed a brief in support of the U.S. Forest Service's right to decide the route of the proposed Atantic Coast Pipeline through George Washington National Forest.
Oral arguments were recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide which agency, the Forest Service or the National Parks Service, has primacy in deciding whether the 605-mile pipeline should be built along its present planned route.
The Forest Service supports the construction of the pipeline while the Parks Service believes it cannot cut across the Appalachian Trail, which the former agency manages.
The review follows a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision that ruled the Forest Service did not properly consider other routes, that federal law barred energy development along the trail. and that the National Parks Service was the proper agency to make any decision.
It is proposed to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through three states, bringing natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia to the sea in North Carolina
In their brief, the unions and pipeline contractors, argued that the Fourth Circuit decision "incorrectly interprets the federal statutes on which it is based."
They added, "It is also an unprecedented, unnecessary, and unwarranted departure from decades of administrative cooperation" between the two services, which "for decades, have agreed to a procedure to permit pipelines running underneath the Appalachian Trail within land under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service."
The Fourth Circuit decision "forecloses any pipeline permitting under the Appalachian Trail, a result which conflicts with federal law and policy.
"Uncertainty in pipeline permitting denies workers quality, skilled jobs; deprives governments of much needed tax revenue; burdens vulnerable communities and consumers with increased energy costs; and increases dependence on the aging pipeline infrastructure," the brief continued.