The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was a planned natural gas pipeline slated to run from West Virginia, through Virginia, to eastern North Carolina. It was canceled in July 2020. Characteristics Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC was the developer and planned operator of the pipeline; the company was a joint venture between Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, with Dominion serving as the lead stakeholder. The proposed route was to begin in Harrison County, West Virginia, drawing gas from wells in the Utica and Marcellus gas fields, and travel southeast through eastern Virginia and North Carolina to its terminus in Robeson County, North Carolina. The route would have crossed the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and included a lateral extending east to Chesapeake, Virginia, bringing the total length to about . The pipeline was proposed to have a diameter for much of its length, with the southern end in North Carolina measuring wide. It would have had a capacity of about of gas daily. Development The Atlantic Coast Pipeline originated in September 2013 when the Obama administration granted a request from Dominion Transmission to export gas to Japan and India. The proposal was announced on record at West Virginia County Commissioner Meetings on May 27, 2014 in Lewis County, West Virginia, on July 1, 2014 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, and on August 7, 2014 in Randolph County, North Carolina, and the developers began the application process for regulatory approval the following month. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project on December 30, 2016, with a final EIS issued on July 21, 2017 after a period of public comment on the draft. Developers had hoped to begin construction in late 2017 and to begin gas transport in late 2019, and the project cost was originally estimated at $5.1 billion. Legal proceedings stalled construction, however, and expected costs ballooned to nearly $8 billion. On August 6, 2018, the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rescinded two approvals permitting the pipeline, one from the Fish and Wildlife Service and another from the National Park Service regarding crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway. The fact that the proposed route crossed beneath the Appalachian Trail generated significant legal difficulty, and the Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit's ruling on the Forest Service's permit process, deciding that the Appalachian Trail's segment through the George Washington National Forest was