WASHINGTON (WV News) — Federal regulators have given the Mountain Valley Pipeline the green light to restart construction.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently issued an order allowing developers to “proceed with all construction activities.”

Work on the project is expected to resume “shortly,” said Natalie Cox, director of communications and corporate affairs for project developers Equitrans Midstream Corp., in an email to WV News.

“We expect the first of several forward-construction crews to begin work on the right of way shortly, and Mountain Valley continues to target project completion by year-end 2023,” she said.

US Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., celebrated the news on Twitter.

“I just received confirmation that the Mountain Valley Pipeline has received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to resume all construction activities,” she said in a tweet posted Wednesday afternoon. “This was the final step needed for the MVP to be completed. Great news for WV and American energy!”

The previous week, Capito announced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had issued the final federal permit needed to restart construction.

“The Mountain Valley Pipeline is set to receive its final Sec. 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers!” she said in a tweet. “This critical step forward is because of a provision I helped include in the Fiscal Responsibility Act that will expedite the MVP’s completion.”

On June 16, Gov. Jim Justice said the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection had issued the MVP’s final state-level permit.

“To the best of my ability, I’m not aware of anything else that is another step that people are waiting on,” he said. “If there be another step, we’ll be on it. I believe that construction has the possibility of starting real, real, real soon.”

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, the package passed by Congress earlier this month following an impasse over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, mandated all federal permits required for the stalled pipeline to resume construction be issued by last Saturday.

While supporters of the MVP celebrated FERC’s order as the culmination of a years-long effort, environmental groups said it was the latest in a series of regulatory and legal failures related to the project.

“Through their own failures alone, the Mountain Valley Pipeline should never be completed,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous. “The unnecessary project has repeatedly been unable to comply with bedrock environmental laws and should never have been used as a tool in must-pass legislation to hold our country hostage or capitulate to special interests willing to destroy the planet for their own profits.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said FERC’s announcement is the “final step needed to get MVP finished and up-and-running.”

“MVP is vital to America’s energy and national security and will benefit not only Wast Virginia, but the entire nation,” Manchin said in a Tweet.

The nonprofit group Appalachian Voices called FERC’s decision “foolhardy.”

“We know that the MVP cannot be built in compliance with our nation’s bedrock environmental laws — which is why the company and its supporters went to the extraordinary length of having Congress attempt to sidestep them,” said Peter Anderson, the group’s Virginia policy director. “We will continue to stand by community members and hold MVP LLC accountable using any and all available means.”

Charlie Burd, executive director of the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, said FERC’s approval was the “final hurdle” to the resumption of construction following years of setbacks.

“It’s great news, I think, for West Virginia — for West Virginia producers, West Virginia residents and for end-users at the end of the pipeline, once the pipeline is completed, that will be getting some of the cleanest natural gas produced any place in the world,” he said.

The MVP project was initially started in 2014. Equitrans Midstream said at the time, the pipeline was expected to be completed by the end of 2018 at an overall cost of around $3.5 billion.

The company recently said the current estimated total cost is approximately $6.6 billion.

In West Virginia, the MVP’s route runs through Braxton, Doddridge, Fayette, Greenbrier, Harrison, Lewis, Monroe, Nicholas, Summers, Webster and Wetzel counties.