An amicus brief was filed April 12 with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that “the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) broke the law in two key ways that discounted and endangered African American and American Indian communities in Virginia and North Carolina in approving the proposed Atlantic Coast gas pipeline.”
The brief was filed by Natural Resources Defense Council and nine other groups: Center for Earth Ethics; Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice; North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign; Repairers of the Breach; Satchidananda Ashram – Yogaville; Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church; Virginia Interfaith Power & Light; Virginia State Conference NAACP; and WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
The brief details how FERC failed to serve the public interest in evaluating, and approving, construction of the proposed 600-mile, $7.5 billion Atlantic Coast project. The groups want the court to declare FERC’s approval of the pipeline null and void or order FERC to conduct a new environmental justice review. A copy of the amicus brief is available here.