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Oh Poor Joe Manchin! A Federal Appeals Court Has Blocked His Little Pipeline For Now! [1]
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Date: 2023-07-16
Senator Joe Manchin has run into another stumbling block to his ransom demand — eh pipeline — that he obtained for his vote to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.
A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., has ordered a halt to construction on a section of an interstate pipeline backed prominently by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and fast-tracked by Congress. In a Monday ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit granted a stay sought by The Wilderness Society to halt construction on a segment of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which would carry natural gas through parts of West Virginia and Virginia. The section includes 3 miles of the planned pipeline that would pass through the Jefferson National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. The law enacted last month to raise the federal debt limit included a provision paving the way for the project. It also removed the 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction, saying instead any cases over its constitutionality should be heard by an appeals court in Washington, D.C.
Emphasis is mine.
Guess who doesn’t like federal judges now?
Manchin, who has long been one of the most vocal backers of the project in the Senate, tweeted that the court’s stay was “unlawful” and said “regardless of your position on MVP, it should alarm every American when a court ignores the law.”
Hey. Does anyone remember Manchin saying anything about any of those other runaway Trump judges? Remember the judge in Texas who decided that a safe drug such as milepristone is no longer safe and should be banned? I don’t recall Manchin saying that Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling was “unlawful.” Seems Manchin thinks only adverse judicial rulings on the fossil fuel industry is a problem.
Frankly, I’m not a lawyer, so I have no idea if Congress can pass a law stating that certain federal judicial districts are out of bounds for plaintiffs. If any lawyers on Daily Kos want to weigh in on this issue, be my guest. Might be a way to stop judge shopping, but if this was legal, would’t Democrats have done this more often?
I’m not sure how this will turn out in the end. If this thing gets kicked up to the SCOTUS someday, I’m sure Justice Gorsuch would take the lead in writing any decision that destroyed a national forest. And I bet there would be another 6-3 ruling from this reactionary SCOTUS in favor of business.
Still, I enjoy seeing Manchin getting frustrated, if only for a while. Considering he has delighted in frustrating Biden’s Agenda, it seems he can dish it out but cannot take it when his plans are blocked. I’m sure he will blame Democrats for this too. The asshole.
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