By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Rhode Island is playing a part in a recent legal challenge to a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline expansion that would run through southern New England.

Fossil Free RI is one of nine anti-pipeline groups, two municipalities and several politicians to file formal requests for a court hearing to vacate the recent federal approval of the Spectra Energy project that would increase the capacity of natural gas delivered from domestic fracking extraction operations in Pennsylvania. The 1,127-mile pipeline already runs through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

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