Biden administration joins Manchin, GOP whip in backing pipeline at Supreme Court

The Biden administration has joined Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and a coalition of Republican representatives in asking the Supreme Court to block an order halting construction of a controversial pipeline.

The deal reached in June to raise the federal debt ceiling includes a provision to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project in Virginia and West Virginia that Manchin has vocally backed. It also transfers jurisdiction over the matter from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last week, however, the 4th Circuit granted a request from The Wilderness Society to temporarily halt construction of a segment of the pipeline in Jefferson National Forest. In response, the pipeline company filed an emergency request with Chief Justice John Roberts to take up the case. Roberts has the option to either act on the request on his own or put it to the court for a full vote, as he has historically done.

Earlier this week, Manchin and a coalition of House GOP members, led by Republican Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), filed amicus briefs backing the pipeline. 

“The application to vacate the court of appeals’ stays should be granted,” wrote U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, adding that the law’s “unambiguous text” states that no court, including the 4th Circuit, will have jurisdiction to review approvals pertaining to the pipeline.

“The category of cases covered by that jurisdictional bar clearly includes the petitions for review here,” Prelogar wrote. She went on to write that arguments that that section of the law itself is unconstitutional also fail, as the law grants jurisdiction over those claims to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“[R]espondents cannot succeed because Congress ratified the agency actions that they challenge and superseded any provision of law inconsistent with the issuance of those approvals,” she wrote.

The Hill has reached out to The Wilderness Society for comment.