The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been urged to uphold a Federal District Court in Montana’s ruling prohibiting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) program from issuing new permits for oil and natural gas pipelines. The District Court’s April 15 ruling came in a case challenging the NWP12 permit for the Keystone project and was extended to affect permits for other new oil and natural gas pipelines. The ruling impacts the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines, neither of which currently have valid NWP12 permits.
In a May 20 brief filed with the Court, the Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana-based conservation group, argued that Army Corps had failed to evaluate the cumulative impact on endangered species of all projects under the NWP12 and that the agency should have completed a programmatic review under the Endangered Species Act before reauthorizing the program for a five-year term beginning in 2017. The case is before the Ninth Circuit on appeal by the Army Corps and industry groups that are asking the Appeals Court to overturn the District Court’s freeze of the NWP12 program until the case is decided the issues. For a copy of the brief, click here.