MEDINA – About 60 property owners, including 10 from Medina County, filed a lawsuit in federal court May 12 seeking to stop construction of the NEXUS Pipeline.

The suit filed in Akron at the U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio asks the court to prevent the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from issuing a certificate for the NEXUS Pipeline and a declaration of legal rights between the plaintiffs and FERC.

President Donald Trump has also nominated two men to serve on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a move that has important implications for the proposed NEXUS Pipeline and the Medina County residents who oppose it.

With only two of five seats on the commission currently occupied, FERC lacks the quorum necessary to issue the certificates needed for construction of the NEXUS Pipeline and other similar projects.

The appointments of Trump nominees Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson to the FERC would clear the way for a vote that would grant final approval to the $2 billion NEXUS Pipeline.

Paul Gierosky, a leader in the local Coalition to Reroute Nexus, said confirmation of Chatterjee and Powelson could happen in 60 days if Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski fulfills a pledge to expedite their hearings in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee she chairs.

Environmentalists who object to the expansion of the fossil fuel industry have little doubt that Chatterjee and Powelson will vote against their interests if confirmed. A coalition of around 160 local, state, regional and national organizations is calling upon the Senate to reject both nominations.

“FERC has been abusing communities for decades, abusing their power and authority in ways that undermines the rights of both people and the states,” said Maya van Rossum, the leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. “Commissioners with industry ties is nothing new, Donald Trump’s picks, if confirmed by the Senate, would take us to a whole new and dangerous level of conflict and bias.”

Kathie Jones, an organizer of Sustainable Medina County, which has also been protesting NEXUS for three years, believes that FERC’s abuses need to be investigated and addressed immediately before any further permits or appointments are made.

Gieorsky agrees with Jones on the need for Senate hearings of FERC procedures. He and 22 other pipeline opponents representing groups across the eastern United States plan to lobby for that in Washington May 22-23.

“We want the Senate to examine how FERC empowers energy companies to abuse people and enforces the law capriciously,” Gierosky said. “The Senate should then put in place appropriate reforms before approving any appointments to FERC.”

Gierosky is also one of 64 plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit asking the FERC to be prohibited from issuing the NEXUS certificate.

“This complaint has been a long time in development,” Gierosky said. “Our every experience in dealing with FERC has been documented and will be brought to bear in this case.”

Spectra Energy plans to build the 36-inch NEXUS Pipeline to carry pressurized natural gas along a 250-mile route from Kensington in eastern Ohio to a gas storage facility in Ypsilanti, Mich. from where it will be sent along existing pipelines to western Ontario.

The route proposed by Spectra would take it through parts of Wadsworth, Guilford, Montville, Lafayette, Litchfield and York townships in Medina County. The original NEXUS timetable proposed by its developers was to have had final FERC approval earlier this year and construction completed in November.