Environmental groups are suing to block a 32-mile pipeline in Tennessee that they warn will lock in planet-warming emissions for decades.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices asked a three-judge panel to toss out the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval to build the Cumberland natural gas pipeline.
The project would supply gas to the Tennessee Valley Authority for a proposed power plant that would replace a coal-fired unit.
“FERC’s decision to greenlight this project ignored the harm the pipeline and gas plant would inflict on Middle Tennessee and beyond,” said Spencer Gall, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing green groups in the case.
