Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity

On January 31, 2018, in proceedings to condemn easements for the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia ruled that the pipeline company’s preliminary injunction motions for pretrial possession of the easements would be granted only if it appraised each of the nearly 300 properties at issue.
Continue Reading Virginia District Court Requires Pipeline Company to Obtain Appraisals Before Granting Preliminary Injunctions For Prejudgment Possession of Land

Environmental groups often seek to delay or stop pipeline projects by filing legal challenges under various state and federal environmental and/or energy laws. Recent court decisions have illustrated the difficult nature of such challenges, and in particular the difficulty environmental groups have in making a threshold showing of the legal basis for their challenge. An offshoot of the well-established principle that a litigant cannot raise someone else’s rights in court, the legal doctrine of ‘standing’ requires a litigant to demonstrate its interest in an actual case or controversy as a preliminary requirement for a case to be heard and decided in a court of law. In addition, a litigant citing a particular statute as the basis for a lawsuit must establish that it has an interest at stake that is within the ‘zone of interests’ protected by that statute.
Continue Reading Standing on Shaky Ground: Environmental Challenges to Pipeline Projects Falter in Establishing Basis for Suit