Fourteen AGs Filed Amicus Brief in Litigation Over Pipeline Crossing Appalachian Trail

JANUARY 22, 2020

Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan led a coalition of 14 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s ruling invalidating the permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service allowing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. In the amicus brief, the attorneys general detailed the statutory and regulatory record clearly establishing the National Park Service’s jurisdiction over the Appalachian Trail—which they note is “one of only three trails deserving that status”—and emphasized that federal land in the National Park System is “expressly exempted from the [Mineral Leasing] Act’s broad pipeline authorization.” The AGs also stressed that the protection of long-distance hiking trails is essential to their states’ “economic, environmental, cultural, and human health interests.”