The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals won’t be successful in stopping the long-delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline project, according to U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who believes the latest stay issued against the natural gas pipeline project will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court issued its latest stay against the West Virginia and Virginia-based pipeline project last week, despite the U.S. Congress approving legislation last month requiring all necessary permits be issued for construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The same legislation was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

Capito said the court won’t be able to stop the pipeline, nor will investors in the project walk away from it.

“I am seriously totally astounded that the politicized court — the circuit court — would come in when Congress has spoken,” Capito said. “We spoke loud and clear six weeks to two months months ago that the Mountain Valley Pipeline is complete, all of their OKs and their permits are issued, and they should be moving ahead with hiring the thousands of West Virginias who will complete this.”

However, by the court issuing another stay, Capito said the critical pipeline project is once again stuck in a “judicial pingpong.” She called the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals an "activist court."

“First of all I will say the Fourth Circuit has shown more than a few times in this process they are working on an agenda here,” Capito said. “You are supposed to have a system that you have random judges out of the 15 judges. Every time Mountain Valley Pipeline comes before that court you have the same three judges that issue the same decision, which is stay. They are obviously opposed to this and they are working on a political agenda.”

Capito said the legislation passed by Congress was carefully reviewed by constitutional lawyers, as well as White House lawyers, before the bill was signed into law by Biden.

“I think we will see a challenge of the stay in the Supreme Court, and I think it will be successful,” Capito said.

Often when such cases make their way to the Surpeme Court, plaintiffs will often argue that Congress has been silent on the issue. But such isn’t the case with the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Capito said.

“A lot of the court decisions that are made say that Congress hasn’t acted here. Congress wasn’t specific here. Congress didn’t make their opinions well defined,” she said. “Well in this one we did. We basically said you are done, these permits are finished. It is time to move on.”

Despite facing another delay, Capito said she didn’t think investors will walk away from the Mountain Valley Pipeline project.

“Well I would say this. Number one I think the opponents of pipelines in general want that exact result — for investors to walk away,” she said. “And so I’m sure that is what they want to happen, and that is not going to happen in this Mountain Valley Pipeline case. I think with the support of the House, the Senate and president on this project, I think that speaks strongly to investors that it will get done.”

In an earlier statement, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also blasted the court’s decision.

Manchin said the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 ratified and approved all necessary permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in order for construction to resume and stated that no court shall have jurisdiction to consider further litigation of these permits.

“The law passed by Congress and signed by the president is clear — the 4th Circuit no longer has jurisdiction over Mountain Valley Pipeline’s construction permits,” Manchin said. “This new order halting construction is unlawful, and regardless of your position on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, it should alarm every American when a court ignores the law.”

Environmentalists argued that the U.S. Congress overstepped its authority by enacting the law green-lighting the pipeline, saying it violates the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution, according to the Associated Press.

The 303-mile, 42-inch diameter pipeline that will carry natural gas from north central West Virginia to Chatham, Va. and beyond, was slated to be finished by late 2018 at a cost of about $3.2 billion. But protests and federal permitting court cases have delayed the project and increased its cost to about $6.5 billion.

One unfinished section of the project is a 3.5-mile stretch through the Jefferson National Forest across Peters Mountain in Monroe County into Giles County, Va.