U.S. Supreme Court
In a narrow 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court revived the 116-mile PennEast gas pipeline project, overturning a lower court’s decision that blocked the company from condemning state-owned land in New Jersey to move the project forward.
The decision released Tuesday could make it easier for new pipeline projects to be built despite efforts by states and environmentalists to block them, a strategy largely driven by fears that increasing emissions from fossil fuels will quicken the pace of climate change in an already global-warming planet.
But the $1 billion project, first proposed more than seven years ago, still faces big challenges both in the courts and with regulatory agencies before building can begin on the pipeline designed to deliver cheap natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
The 5-4 decision did not fall along traditional partisan leanings. Justices Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the pipeline company. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan opposed.
Roberts in the courtâs majority opinion pointed to previous federal eminent domain uses in railroads and other infrastructure projects, saying pipelines are allowed the same protection.
âWhen the Framers met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they sought to create a cohesive national sovereign in response to the failings of the Articles of Confederation,â the opinion reads. âOver the course of the Nationâs history, the Federal Government and its delegates have exercised the eminent domain power to give effect to that vision, connecting our country through turnpikes, bridges, and railroads â and more recently pipelines, telecommunications infrastructure, and electric t
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