A coalition of environmental groups wants a federal agency to hold an evidentiary hearing on the public need for the proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). If granted, such a hearing could delay a decision on the pipeline, which already is a year behind the schedule originally anticipated for possible construction.
In a motion filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) on Wednesday, the coalition claims that justification for the $5.5 billion interstate natural gas pipeline -- which would stretch from West Virginia into Virginia and North Carolina -- has eroded in the three years since it was proposed.
The filing by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on behalf of eight environmental groups states that, “The primary stated purpose of this pipeline is to fuel gas-fired power plants in Virginia and North Carolina. But the energy landscape that prompted Dominion Energy and Duke Energy to propose this project in 2014 has shifted dramatically, and the purported justification for the project is eroding, if it ever existed before.”
