Construction of the pipeline, first proposed five years ago, already is more than two years behind schedule and almost $3 billion over budget in large part because of rulings by the 4th Circuit that have vacated federal permits for the project.

Dominion is asking the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to reissue a permit that the 4th Circuit vacated last year because of inadequate analysis of the project’s likely effect on endangered or threatened animal species in its path. The company stopped work on the project in December after the appeals court vacated the biological opinion the agency approved.

The 4th Circuit ruling on the Appalachian Trail crossing prompted the company to adopt a new strategy to build the pipeline first from Buckingham County, where it would intersect with an existing interstate natural gas pipeline at a planned gas compressor station, to the Atlantic coast.

Environmental groups have appealed the state air quality permit for the compressor station, which they contend poses unfair risks to a historically African American community at Union Hill.

The rest of the project would depend on the Supreme Court or an act of Congress to allow construction of the pipeline on federal lands beneath the Appalachian Trail.