Groups File Emergency Request to Halt Construction of Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Sierra Club and allied groups filed an emergency motion for stay in federal court to stop ongoing construction of the fracked gas Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline while legal challenges to it are being decided. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is seeking to rush construction without allowing for appropriate judicial review.

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company recently started construction on the nearly 200-mile pipeline, which clear cut its way through ten Pennsylvania counties, impacting hundreds of acres of forested land and crossing dozens of wetlands and water bodies. The disputed project has made headlines lately as protestors and nuns confronted the pipeline builders, resulting in almost two dozen arrests.

The pipeline would move fracked gas from northern Pennsylvania to an existing system of pipelines that delivers gas to the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions. Some of the gas is likely to be exported, including through liquefied natural gas export facilities along the Gulf Coast and at Cove Point, Maryland.

The petitioner groups, represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates and Sierra Club, include Lancaster Against Pipelines, Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, Allegheny Defense Project, Clean Air Council, Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County, Heartwood, and the Accokeek, Mattawoman, Piscataway Creeks Communities Council. They are requesting that construction not move forward unless and until FERC conducts a comprehensive environmental review that fully accounts for the project’s short- and long-term impacts, as well as the public need for the project. A report prepared by Key-Log Economics details the ways that FERC has overstated the pipeline’s economic benefits while discounting or ignoring its true costs.

In response, Tom Torres, Conservation Program Manager for the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club released the following statement:

"If it is built, the people of Pennsylvania will be stuck with the dirty, dangerous fracked gas Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline for decades. Transco has been ignoring the widespread concerns about this project since the beginning, rushing the process and cutting out the families and communities who would be most affected by this pipeline project. We filed this request today because Pennsylvanians deserve their day in court before corporate polluters try to fast-track yet another fossil fuel project."