The Trump administration changed the rule for the Endangered Species Act before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued their delayed Biological Opinion for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Please immediately file a challenge to the roll backs to protect the endangered species in the path of the MVP. It's imperative for your office to file an injunction to stop all new construction work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline until MVP revises their erosion and sediment controls and building plans to protect endangered species.

The Trump administration rolled back protections for endangered species in August 2020. “These changes crash a bulldozer through the Endangered Species Act’s lifesaving protections for America’s most vulnerable wildlife,” Noah Greenwald, the Center for Biological Diversity’s endangered species director, said in a statement.

The new rule issued in mid-August 2020 finalized an earlier proposal from the Interior Department. It's important for the Commonwealth of Virginia to support the lawsuits from many environmental groups who say the changes will gut the law. The environmental groups include the Sierra Club, Center of Biological Diversity, Natural Resource Defense Council, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, the National Parks Conservation Association, and WildEarth Guardians.

The Sierra Club et al filed a motion to FERC, in late August, explaining the threat to the endangered Roanoke logperch from the Mountain Valley Pipeline:
"New information reveals that the pipeline will more significantly impact the endangered Roanoke logperch than previously considered FWS has concluded that “[s]mall [Roanoke] logperch populations could go extinct with minor habitat degradation,” and “[a]ll the populations are small.”...“the USFWS determined, as of 2007, the Roanoke logperch remained in danger of extinction throughout its range”). Roanoke logperch are particularly susceptible to sedimentation and siltation, including due to upland land disturbance."

It is horrendous that FERC lifted the stop work order without resolving the continuing pollution from the MVP to the habitat for the endangered Roanoke logperch. We need you to immediately intervene to protect our water and endangered species.