Energy Attorneys Hint it’s ‘Lights Out’ for Constitution Pipeline

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On Monday we brought you the sad news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled against the Constitution Pipeline and their lawsuit against the Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see Court Rejects Constitution Pipe’s Case Against NY DEC; Now What?). To boil it down to its essence, the court said the DEC had the right to reject issuing stream crossing permits for the critically-needed pipeline, even though it would shut down the project. That is, individual states have the right to stop a federally-approved project. Frankly, it’s distressing. The one sliver of light is that the DEC took too long to issue their rejection–more than the one year allowed. Constitution may be able to request an approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), overruling the DEC, because the law in question provides that if a state doesn’t issue (or reject) a permit within one year of application, FERC then has the right to issue the permit. So we might still win on a technicality. That’s our hope. But we spotted analysis of this court decision by two energy attorneys–people who work for drilling-friendly law firms. Their analysis is sobering. They hint (our words) that it is likely “lights out” for the Constitution–that the project will not get built. Are they right?…

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