On June 8, 2023, hundreds of frontline and Appalachian climate activists rallied at the White House against the Mountain Valley Pipeline

From the Article by Ivy Main, Power for the People VA, June 29, 2023

The folly of building the Mountain Valley Pipeline should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project!

This spring’s passage of federal legislation raising the debt ceiling came with one provision that clean energy advocates had fought hard against: it sweeps away several legal challenges to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that have stalled completion for more than four years. The pipeline is supposed to carry methane gas from the fracking fields of West Virginia into Virginia to connect to an existing interstate pipeline here, and getting it built has long been a priority of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

Manchin surely believes he notched a victory with the inclusion of this provision in must-pass legislation. And in one respect, he’s right. Pipeline opponents aren’t conceding defeat, but stopping the MVP in court just got a heck of a lot harder.

Whether the pipeline’s developers should be celebrating is another matter. The wisdom of building a new methane gas pipeline was questionable nine years ago when the MVP was conceived. Today, with the U.S. transitioning away from fossil fuels, the folly of building new gas infrastructure should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project.

Dominion Energy figured this out three years ago when it dropped plans to develop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Dominion is a big energy conglomerate and had other projects to pursue. Canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline saved it billions of dollars that it is now investing in offshore wind and other renewable energy assets.

MVP’s two largest minority partners are also diversified companies with other options. NextEra Energy, which owns a 31% share in the partnership through its subsidiary Next Energy Resources, wrote off the value of its investment in MVP in 2021 and 2022, saying it planned to “reevaluate its investment in the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

A NextEra spokesperson did not answer my question about what the company plans to do about MVP now. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at NextEra Energy Resources’ homepage. MVP isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website, which is largely a celebration of the company’s renewable energy assets.

The third-largest stakeholder in the MVP is Consolidated Edison, with an initial 12.5% stake. In 2019 it exercised an option to cap its investment in MVP, and in 2020 it wrote down the value of its investment by almost half. ConEd CEO John McAvoy told investors that year the company would no longer invest in gas transmission projects and “certainly would” consider selling its stake in MVP.

“We made those investments five to seven years ago,” he said, “and at that time we — and frankly many others — viewed natural gas as having a fairly large role in the transition to the clean energy economy. That view has largely changed, and natural gas, while it can provide emissions reductions, is no longer … part of the longer-term view.”

Unfortunately, these views aren’t shared by MVP’s majority owner and operator. Equitrans Midstream is solely a pipeline and gas storage company, having been spun off from a larger corporation, EQT, in 2018. MVP is its key to growth. The exit door may be wide open, but Equitrans doesn’t want to leave because it has nowhere to go.

That doesn’t mean it makes sense to stay, either. Many a gambler has learned the hard way that continuing to feed coins into a slot machine does not make it more likely to disgorge the jackpot.

And really, if there ever was a jackpot for MVP, it is gone by now. In 2015, EQT saw an opportunity to undercut the price charged by existing pipelines to ship gas to an energy-hungry Southeast. Today, though, demand for methane gas has cooled in the face of cheap wind and solar, while MVP’s costs have ballooned to $6.6 billion from the initial projection of $3.25 billion. Analysts say MVP’s competitive advantage has evaporated, and its prospects for profitability look grim.

Equitrans maintains that there is still a pressing need for its pipeline, but demand has always been hypothetical. From the very beginning, the partnership seemingly indulged in “build it and they will come” magical thinking.

Getting a permit to build from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires that pipeline developers have their customers lined up ahead of time in order to demonstrate a “need” for the project. Even in 2015 there were not enough customers clamoring for MVP’s services, so the partners named themselves as the buyers for more than half of the pipeline’s capacity. FERC’s approach to permitting allows this self-dealing, though the commission has been heavily criticized for it.

Obviously, Equitrans was never going to be a customer; it isn’t in the business of generating power or selling gas at retail. Its field of dreams assumed demand for gas would grow, customers would be clamoring for pipeline capacity, and Equitrans would be able sell its share of the capacity and just reap the profits from owning the pipeline.

It’s hard to imagine that happening now. Economics had already started to favor wind and solar over fossil fuels when the MVP broke ground. Total natural gas consumption has been mostly flat nationwide since 2018, and the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects it will decline steadily for the next decade. EIA also projects that more than half of all new electric generating capacity this year will be solar, with natural gas additions down to a mere 14%. Here in Virginia, methane gas burned by electric utilities has declined from a high in 2020.

The future will only get brighter for renewables and dimmer for gas. In 2020, Virginia committed to a zero-carbon energy future, and in 2022 Congress passed the strongest set of clean energy incentives in history. Betting on fossil fuels in today’s environment makes no sense.

Sure, Governor Youngkin is doing his level best to throw a wrench in the works, and Dominion Energy Virginia just proposed building a 1,000-megawatt gas combustion turbine, citing growing demand from data centers and electric vehicles. Misguided as that proposal is, it doesn’t signal good times ahead for the gas industry. Combustion turbines are not baseload plants; they run only when demand exceeds other sources of supply. Dominion has no plans to build new baseload gas plants.

MVP knows finding customers in Virginia will be hard. Before litigation and permit denials put construction on hold in 2018, the partnership had proposed an extension of the pipeline into North Carolina, perhaps hoping for better pickings in Duke Energy territory. Now that MVP has the congressional seal of approval, it is seeking to revive the proposed Southgate Extension, to the dismay of North Carolina activists. Yet economics don’t favor gas over solar there, either.

The liquefied natural gas export market has also been floated as a potential source of growth, but critics say the lack of liquefied natural gas terminal capacity prevents that from happening.

It’s time to stop this travesty. Equitrans claims MVP is 94% complete, but opponents say the true figure is more like 56%, with many of the most difficult segments (like stream crossings) still to be tackled. Those are also the most environmentally sensitive parts of the line. Pulling the plug on MVP now would avoid not only the cost of completing the pipeline, but also the cost of fixing leaks, erosion damage and other problems critics believe are inevitable given the terrain and geology.

That would be a much better result for everyone concerned than completing the pipeline to serve a market that doesn’t exist – a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

>>> This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on June 28, 2023.

One of the rallies over the last eight years opposing the 42” MVP ….

From the Article by Maury Johnson (Monroe County, WV), Common Dreams, 4/26/23

Secretary Granholm’s letter cheerleading the Mountain Valley Pipeline came the day after she promised to meet with me, a landowner impacted by Senator Manchin’s pet fossil fuel project.

I am saddened by the depths that proponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will go to advance a false narrative and spread inaccuracies. This time it is Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm who on Friday, April 21, 2023 wrote a cheerleader’s letter rooting for the MVP, Joe Manchin’s pet project. It is very ironic and even a bit disturbing that she wrote this letter one day after she appeared before the Senate Energy Committee and the very next day after she told me personally that she (or her staff) would meet with me in the next week or two.

I am currently in Washington, D.C. where I attended the Senate Energy Committee meeting on Thursday, April 20. I spoke to the Secretary at the conclusion of the hearing and asked her to meet with me. She indicated that a meeting could be arranged this week or next. But in what appears to be a hastily prepared letter — even possibly dictated by the fossil fuel lobby — she expressed her desire to exert political pressure on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other federal agencies.

The Secretary apparently decided that she did not need to talk to those most affected by the project or even entertain an opposing viewpoint. Like many agencies, she did not talk with or listen to any affected landowner and totally continued to perpetrate the social, racial, and environmental injustice concerns that President Joe Biden had just a few hours before expressed that his administration would take seriously.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t. This letter appears to be written to appease Senator Manchin and others in the MVP camp. It is also strange that this letter was filed just before Equitrans Midstream Corporation — the company behind the pipeline — had its shareholder meeting on Monday morning, April 24.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t.

The MVP project is not necessary to support the nation’s energy security and energy supply. Just because they say it is so, doesn’t make it true. It actually would do just the opposite. It would lock us into decades of methane and carbon pollution that the nation or the planet can ill afford. As the lead federal agency for the project under the FAST-41 framework, I feel that the FERC has failed in its regulatory duty to be an independent agency by submitting to inappropriate industry-generated political pressure similar to that which is reflected in Secretary Granholm’s letter. It appears to me to be an attempt to intimidate the commission.

In a letter I just completed and sent to the FERC, I requested that they do their job and follow their charter as an independent agency: to evaluate all projects on their merits and with regard to their impact on climate change and to resist the political pressure placed on them by politicians like Senator Manchin, who would build more pipelines, mine more coal, drill for more oil and gas, despite the fact that it would put us on a fast track to total environment destruction.

I do not believe that the MVP project would help ensure the “reliable delivery of energy that heats homes and businesses, and powers electric generators that support the reliability of the electric system,” despite what Secretary Granholm may state in her letter. This is a 42-inch diameter interstate transmission line which is most likely slated to transmit gas for export.

Infrastructure such as MVP destroys communities, pollutes water, harms our environment, and has no role to play in the clean energy transition. Unproven technologies such as “carbon capture” facilitated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are not something you should rely on to fix our climate emergency. With the severe problems we are facing, these proposals are too little, too late.

No new pipeline infrastructure is needed. The rapid growth of hydrogen as an emissions-free fuel is also a misnomer, especially if the hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of more drilling. The transport of carbon dioxide through a pipeline might be the most dangerous thing we could ever do. I believe Secretary Granholm herself knows better than what she stated in her April 21 letter.

As extreme weather events continue to put strain on the U.S. energy system, we must quickly transition to green energy and continuing to build pipelines cannot be part of that transition. The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

Now here is the hardly disguised, hard-hitting core message embedded in a (not so funny part of) Granholm’s letter: “While the Department takes no position regarding the outstanding agency actions required under federal or state law related to the construction of the MVP project, nor on any pending litigation, we submit the view that the MVP project will enhance the Nation’s critical infrastructure for energy and national security. We appreciate the Commission’s prompt actions to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities regarding natural gas infrastructure under the Natural Gas Act, and the interagency coordination it provides as the lead federal agency for the project under FAST-41. We look forward to continuing to work with FERC to ensure consumers have access to reliable, cost-effective, and clean energy.”

That was a very strong armed tactic, if I ever saw one. I believe it is totally inappropriate to write such a letter, especially when just one day before she said she would meet with me and the president issued the Executive Order Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All on the morning before she wrote her letter to the FERC. The president said all executive branch agencies have a duty to pursue environmental justice. Apparently Secretary Granholm did not get the message.

Meanwhile, I am still in Washington D.C. waiting to hear from Secretary Granholm. Personally, I don’t understand her rush to write her letter cheering for the MVP. It is also typical of how most government leaders have treated landowners and other citizens in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Maury Johnson inspected a section of the plastic coated pipe here

Sen. Kaine does his homework & presents reasoned arguments

From Senator Tim Kaine (D – VA), Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, October 13, 2022

Thank you for contacting me about energy permitting reform and the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). I appreciate hearing from you.

On Tuesday, August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. This historic legislation invests $369 billion in addressing climate change and improving domestic energy production and manufacturing, reducing carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030, and bringing an estimated $11.6 billion of investment in large-scale power generation and storage to Virginia. The Inflation Reduction Act does not fund or approve the construction of any pipeline.

As part of a bargain to ensure the passage of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, which I was proud to support as the biggest step the United States has ever taken to address climate change, Senate leadership agreed to take up separate legislation to ensure the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). If completed as proposed, the MVP would run through Craig, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Pittsylvania, and Roanoke counties.

For many years, I have received input from Virginians about the MVP. However, I was not consulted about this deal, and I did not support the pipeline provisions in it pertaining to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. I expressed my views publicly in the run-up to a vote on a critical government funding bill that contained this provision, and I am relieved it was ultimately stripped out due to enough other Senators joining me to oppose it.

We owe it to Virginians to ensure that any energy project that deeply affects their communities, even to the point of seizing their property, should only proceed following an orderly, fair, and transparent process overseen by energy and environmental agencies. That’s why I agree with the need to reform our broken process for permitting energy infrastructure. I am receptive to many of the permitting reform provisions in the Manchin bill, though I believe it could be significantly improved by including my legislation to improve the permitting process, the Pipeline Fairness, Transparency, and Responsible Development Act.

However, the MVP portions of this bill were unacceptable to me. Over 100 miles of this pipeline are in Virginia, but I was not included in the discussions and therefore not given an opportunity to share Virginians’ concerns. In that sense, I stood in the same position as many of my constituents who have felt ignored along the way.

Green-lighting the MVP is contrary to the spirit of permitting reform. Such a deliberate action by Congress to put its thumb on the scale and simply approve this project while shutting down opportunities for full administrative or judicial review is at odds with the bipartisan desire to have a more transparent and workable permitting process. It also contradicts a position I have publicly advocated for many years—that Congress should not be the decider of these projects, but should instead set up an effective administrative permitting system and allow it to work without legislative interference.

I also strongly objected to the highly unusual provisions to eliminate any judicial review for key parts of the MVP process and strip jurisdiction away from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for cases involving the MVP. The owners of the MVP may be dissatisfied with rulings of the Fourth Circuit; in my 18 years as a civil rights lawyer practicing in the Fourth Circuit, I wasn’t always happy with the Court’s rulings. But a litigant in federal court—rich or poor, individual or company—has appellate remedies if it disagrees with a court ruling. Allowing one party disappointed with the actions of a court to pick a different court, bypass normal administrative processes, and eliminate meaningful judicial review of its project would set a dangerous precedent that could easily lead to abuse and even corruption in the future.

I have tracked the checkered regulatory process of the MVP for many years. I have held public input sessions as far back as 2015. I wrote a 5-page letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) summarizing the key points of what I heard. I introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Mark Warner and Congressman Morgan Griffith to improve the FERC process when it comes to issues like eminent domain, adequate public meetings and opportunities for input, compensation for crossings of the Appalachian Trail or conservation easements, and whether multiple pipelines in the same geographic region should be sited less than 100 miles from one another.

I have been doing everything I can to amplify the voices of Virginians in this process. Whether you oppose or support the pipelines, Virginians deserve to have confidence that FERC has followed a full and fair process and considered all factors. Congress should not make decisions on individual pipelines because that would inevitably lead to partisan decision-making. But Congress writes the laws that govern FERC, and I believe that if the FERC process is flawed, Congress should adjust the law to fix the flaws. This is what I have proposed to do.

I will be sure to keep your views in mind should permitting reform legislation again be considered by the full Senate. Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue, and please continue to make your voice heard.

Sincerely, Sen. Tim Kaine, U. S. Senate, Washington, DC

Residual Waste is toxic brine, as with the diesel truck exhaust gases

From an Article by Michael Barrick, Appalachian Chronicle, September 18, 2022
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WESTON, W.Va. – We read in Ecclesiastes that there is a season for everything, including a time to be silent and a time to speak. By now, I had hoped to be silent. As a pensioner, I was hoping to hang out with my family, do some hiking, and to travel a bit. In short, I’m just trying to live a peaceful life. The only problem is that corruption and violence are so rampant that they can’t be ignored.

Silence in the face of violence is compliance with it. (To hear a beautiful take on that notion, listen to “Medicine” by the Americana band Rising Appalachia). So my season of silence is over.

For nearly a decade, before I tried to step back a few months ago, I had written more than 100 articles about the public health, safety and environmental dangers of fracking and related pipeline development. I’ve also written about Mountaintop Removal and efforts by environmental activists to protect the pristine Appalachian Mountains. What West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and his fossil fuel cronies have inflicted upon the people and land of West Virginia and Virginia in attempting to build the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is nothing short of a violent assault upon the people and land.

In building the now-abandoned Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and the MVP, energy companies EQT, Duke Energy and Dominion and their subcontractors have been ruthless, as the articles below reveal. (Note: some links within articles may no longer be valid). This collective chronicle of the gas industry’s tactics reveal deceit, threats and destruction. The MVP remains uncompleted only because of the people in its path. A coalition of individuals and groups have stalled it primarily through successful legal and regulatory challenges, not to mention dogged determination.

These articles – the first published Aug. 4 2014 – demonstrate what a roller-coaster ride of emotions and betrayal landowners and environmentals have experienced. They succeeded in shutting down the ACP and had the MVP on the ropes. Investors were nervous.

However, it appeared that all of that work against the MVP may have been undone in a behind-closed-doors deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin to get Manchin’s essential vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act. That deal was supposed to streamline the permitting process for the MVP.

However, E&E News Energy Wire is reporting that may not be enough to salvage the beleaguered and long-delayed project. According to the article, a primary obstacle may be legislation announced and sponsored by West Virginia’s other Senator, Republican Shelley Moore Capito. The Republican proposal is picking up bi-partisan support. The E&E News article details how legal and regulatory challenges could still derail the MVP should the proposal pass, as it would not allow the MVP to bypass judicial review.

Though this is hopeful news, this fight is far from over. There is simply too much money changing hands. So, keep up with this story and support any effort to thwart the shady dealings of Schumer and Manchin.

These articles would not have been possible without the cooperation of my family and the subjects of the articles. They are the brave souls willing to share their stories, allowing me insight, facts and documents to support my enterprise and investigative reporting; additionally, contributions from other writers have served to enrich our reporting.

So, while it may take you a while, please read through our past articles. You will see that the fossil fuel industry hasn’t changed tactics in over a century. Only this time, instead of using Baldwin-Felt thugs to do their dirty work as they did during the West Virginia Mine Wars in the early 1920s, today’s energy executives hatch their plots on Manchin’s “Almost Heaven” yacht moored on the Potomac River.

We can do better, we need to do better, let’s try harder!

Press Release from Karuna Jaguar, Center for Biological Diversity & Peter Hart, Food & Water Watch, July 29, 2022

WASHINGTON— More than 350 conservation and community groups, representing millions of people, called on President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer today to reject fossil fuel expansion during negotiations over a reconciliation package.

The groups also urged Biden to use the full suite of his executive authority to stop issuing federal fossil fuel leases and deny permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure, and to declare a climate emergency, which would unlock powerful tools to combat the climate crisis.

“Permitting new fossil fuel projects will further entrench us in a fossil fuel economy for decades to come — and constitutes a violent betrayal of your pledge to combat environmental racism and destruction,” the groups’ lettersaid. “New fossil fuel projects will also lock workers into a dying industry and delay the growth in sectors that will support jobs of the future.”

Two provisions buried in the Inflation Reduction Act would require massive oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, reinstate an illegal 2021 Gulf lease sale and mandate that millions more acres of public lands be offered for leasing before any new solar or wind energy projects could be built on public lands or waters. These leasing provisions lock in decades of additional fossil fuel pollution and continue a racist legacy of sacrificing environmental justice communities.

Greenlighting new fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with climate science and the administration’s climate goals. The science is clear that the president cannot approve any new fossil fuel leases and still stay within the U.S. carbon budget for keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Communities at the front lines of the climate emergency are already dealing with and dying from ever-worsening fires, hurricanes, flooding, heat waves and drought. A recent analysis showed that more than 40% of Americans lived in areas hit by climate disasters last year, a number that would grow if the fossil fuel-friendly provisions in the IRA become law.

Letter signers, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, Our Revolution and Sunrise Movement, are urging Democratic leaders to reject fossil fuel expansion and stand with the communities that voted them into office.

>>>>> COMMENTS AND QUOTES TELL MORE ABOUT IT!

“We can’t let the renewable energy transition be held hostage by fossil fuel companies,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Manchin bill is a devil’s bargain that ignores science and locks us into at least a decade of new oil and gas extraction. There’s a way forward that doesn’t spew more greenhouse gas pollution into the air and harm frontline communities, and it means eliminating these giveaways to the fossil-fuel industry.”

“This bill should not be considered a climate victory,” said Jim Walsh, policy director for Food & Water Watch. “Locking in more drilling and fracking on public lands and waters, billions in subsidies for the myth of carbon capture, and fast-tracking permit approvals for gas pipelines and exports are exactly the policies fueling the climate crisis and harming public health with increasing pollution in our air and water. Lawmakers who support real climate solutions should reject this deal until the fossil fuel handouts are removed.”

“The Inflation Reduction Act may be the most Washington can offer right now, but it’s a far cry from what’s actually needed to address the climate crisis,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth. “The investments in renewables, energy efficiency and Superfund clean-ups will make a difference, but communities and the climate continue to be sacrificed to Sen. Manchin’s fossil fuel demands.”

FERC has five commissioners to manage the agency

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ~ FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION (FERC)

On June 29, 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) issued a Notice of Request for an extension of time by Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC (Mountain Valley), until October 13, 2026 to complete construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project (Project) and place the Project facilities into service. The June 29 Notice set a due date for comments and interventions of July 14, 2022. By this notice the due date for comments and interventions is extended by 15 days to July 29, 2022.

As stated in the June 29 Notice, any person wishing to comment on Mountain Valley’s request for an extension of time may do so. No reply comments or answers will be considered. If you wish to obtain legal status by becoming a party to the proceedings for this request, you should, on or before the comment date stated below, file a motion to intervene in accordance with the requirements of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure (18 CFR 385.214 or 385.211) and the Regulations under the Natural Gas Act (18 CFR 157.10).

In addition to publishing the full text of this document in the Federal Register, the Commission provides all interested persons an opportunity to view and/or print the contents of this document via the Internet through the Commission’s Home Page (http://www.ferc.gov) using the “eLibrary” link. Enter the docket number excluding the last three digits in the docket number field to access the document. At this time, the Commission has suspended access to Commission’s Public Reference Room, due to the proclamation declaring a National Emergency concerning the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), issued by the President on March 13, 2020. For assistance, contact FERC at FERCOnlineSupport@ferc.gov or call toll-free, (886) 208-3676 or TYY, (202) 502-8659.

The Commission strongly encourages electronic filings of comments, protests and interventions in lieu of paper using the “eFile” link at http://www.ferc.gov. Persons unable to file electronically may mail similar pleadings to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20426. Hand delivered submissions in docketed proceedings should be delivered to Health and Human Services, 12225 Wilkins Avenue, Rockville, Maryland 20852.

Comment End Date: 5:00 pm Eastern Time on July 29, 2022

>>> Kimberly D. Bose, FERC Secretary

Mountain Valley Pipeline can contaminate rivers & streams during construction

Just a reminder of some upcoming comment deadlines on MVP and ACP:
____________________________________________

Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)

The Notice of Scoping comment period for MVP’s request to bore at 180+ waterbodies, FERC Docket CP21-57, closes tomorrow, April 15th at 4:59pm.

If you want to weigh in, here are a couple options:

Public petition from App Voices, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, POWHR + CCAN

(URL to share: bit.ly/MVPscoping)

>>>. CP21-57 Talking points

>>>. Sierra Club petition

>>>. Wild Virginia Guide

>. Submit a Comment via eComment directly into the docket

>. Need help navigating the site?

______________________________

Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)

The ACP restoration plan comment period closes Friday, April 16th at 4:59pm.

>>>. Here is information from Friends of Nelson on how to weigh in

>>>. Submit a Comment via eComment directly into the docket

Thank you!
–
Jessica Sims, Virginia Field Coordinator
Appalachian Voices, 812 E. High Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902

(434) 226-0589 office
jessica@appvoices.org

Mountain Valley Pipeline under construction in Virginia

From an Article by Arianna Skibell, E & E News, March 25, 2021

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied a bid to stop construction on parts of the embattled Mountain Valley pipeline, despite a stern rebuke from the agency’s two Democratic members.

Mountain Valley “lacks the federal authorizations required to cross over 700 waterbodies and wetlands along the project route,” FERC Chair Richard Glick and Commissioner Allison Clements, both Democrats, wrote in their dissent. “Under these circumstances, allowing piecemeal construction of a project that is still awaiting critical federal authorizations is inconsistent with any reasonable reading of [the pipeline's certificate], not to mention our responsibilities to the landowners, communities, and others who have interests at stake in this proceeding.”

The dispute stems from a FERC decision in December, when the agency — then under Republican leadership — voted to allow the 303-mile natural gas pipeline to resume construction between certain mileposts near the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. A group of environmental advocates led by the Sierra Club contested the ruling.

Republican Commissioners Neil Chatterjee, James Danly and Mark Christie, representing the majority, bypassed Glick’s objections and issued the order denying the Sierra Club challenge yesterday.

While Glick is chair and controls the agency’s agenda, the order marks the limitation of his power without a majority of Democrats on the panel. Chatterjee’s term expires in June, and President Biden is expected to appoint a Democrat to take his place.

The order does not change the status of the $6 billion project that would carry natural gas through West Virginia and Virginia, as Mountain Valley developers resumed construction following FERC’s decision in December and favorable legal rulings.

But the project has faced a series of delays and legal battles and currently lacks a number of permits required for completion, including one to cut through part of the Jefferson National Forest. Financial analysts have predicted that further delays could doom the project.

Wild Virginia, an environmental group that opposes the pipeline, said a stay of the commission’s December order “would have prevented further damage to valuable and sensitive environments along a 17-mile route through our mountains and forests.”

“However, this failure by the Commission, to act responsibly and uphold the public interest, will not stop or slow our efforts to end the MVP once and for all,” said David Sligh, the group’s conservation director, in a statement, using an abbreviation for the project. “Where FERC and other agencies have repeatedly failed us, we seek the court’s intervention and believe we have a great chance of success in those suits.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the Sierra Club’s request to stop construction last month. The case is now pending judicial review, but the court has not set a timeline for its decision.

Analysts at research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC noted yesterday’s order marks “no change to MVP’s current construction authorizations” but pointed out that Glick and Clements’ dissent offers the Sierra Club a wellspring of legal arguments to draw on in any future litigation.

“We expect the Sierra Club to rely heavily on the dissents (Glick’s from the December order and the joint dissent in today’s order) in their appeal,” ClearView said in a note to clients.

>>>>>>>………………>>>>>>>………………>>>>>>>

Senators Kaine and Warner voice concerns about MVP stream crossings

From the Allegheny Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) Update #305 – April 2, 2021

Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, have written Richard Glick, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to express concerns they have heard from constituents about confusion on recent filings with the agency by Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC (MVP, LLC).

Their March 26 letter asked that the comment period for the public to express their views to FERC be extended by at least 60 days.

The Senators also raised the issue of MVP, LLC’s plans to bore underneath streams, stating:

The environmental impacts of the newly proposed trenchless technology, such as conventional direct bore, horizontal direct drilling (HDD), and “microtunnelling,” are not yet fully understood by impacted parties in Virginia. Boring allows for work to occur up to and under the waterways, which could require blasting and excavation of bore pits required for drilling under water crossings.

Given the unfamiliarity of the proposed boring methods to our constituents, we understand there are many questions and concerns about how this process will impact their daily lives. A detailed environmental survey and a substantial comment period will bring additional transparency and public engagement to FERC’s regulatory process.

Coated 42 inch high pressure pipe is seem at lower right, quite risky for the steep terrain of WV & VA or under rivers & streams

To: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Subject: Docket Number – CP21-57-000; Deny MVP’s request to amend Certificate

Appalachian Voices and our supporters, whose signatures will be submitted, respectfully request that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission deny the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s request to amend their Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. There has been no supplemental environmental impact statement for the requested changes, and MVP’s request appears to be an attempt to circumvent restrictions resulting from the loss of water crossing permits, and to interfere with their own application for state-level permits.

Expanding upon their 2020 amendment request, which the Commission did not approve, MVP applies the same approach: altering plans at will, mid-construction, requesting hundreds of variances from approved permit conditions and pursuing conflicting, simultaneous paths to circumvent missing water protection permits. The company’s construction plan—and subsequent environmental impacts—continue to move further from the original, approved certificate. This newest Certificate Amendment is akin to a variance request for the entire route.

Without proper analysis, the public cannot know the severity of impacts to soil, steep slopes, streams and wetlands that would be caused by close to two hundred conventional borings. The company should not receive a blank check to arbitrarily alter construction practices along almost the entire route.

Waterways in steep terrain and with karst geology are not suitable locations for boring, and longer crossings bring additional risk. Multiple requests by Intervenors for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in response to granted variances have gone unanswered by the Commission in the original Docket CP16-10. As construction potentially proceeds, the plans and execution of these plans bear less and less resemblance to what was reviewed and approved by the Commission in 2017 and used to inform other Federal and State agency decisions.

We respectfully ask that the request to amend the certificate be denied. If the FERC is seriously considering this amendment, we request that the Commission undertake a full Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that thoroughly addresses impacts from boring and is accompanied by a 90-day public comment period.

Thank you for consideration of our comments and any additional personal comments our supporters have submitted.

Sincerely, Appalachian Voices & associates

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See also: Appalachian Voices’s petition for the MVP Certificate Amendment, Docket CP21-57

See also: Talking Points, including an intervenor template

Delaware River (black trace) forms boundaries for these Penna. counties: Delaware, Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Monroe & Pike

From an Article by Maya Weber, S&P Global — Platts News, March 10, 2021

Washington — Even with the change in presidential administrations, the US is supporting PennEast Pipeline’s position in a Supreme Court case examining a private developer’s ability to use eminent domain to seize properties in which a state has an interest.

The continuation of the US Solicitor General’s support that emerged toward the end of the Trump Administration could benefit the 116-mile, 1.1 Bcf/d project linking Marcellus Shale dry gas production with markets in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
The project has struggled with regulatory and litigation hurdles in New Jersey, which challenged the project’s use of eminent domain and rejected water permits.

At issue before the Supreme Court is a 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals judgment that found that because of state sovereign immunity, the private pipeline company lacked authority to pull the state of New Jersey into federal court for condemnation proceedings.

PennEast appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, with backing from other natural gas companies, which argued the ruling could enable states to block interstate gas pipelines and chill investments in infrastructure across the US.

In a friend of the court brief filed March 8, Acting Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the 3rd Circuit lacked jurisdiction to determine whether the Natural Gas Act authorizes the pipeline company to condemn state property. The state should have raised its contention about the lack of authority before FERC and in the pending appeals court review of the commission’s decisions, the brief said.

The US also argued that the “text, structure, history and purpose” of the NGA show it authorizes pipeline certificate holders to condemn all property needed to build a FERC-approved pipeline, “whether or not a state claims any interest in such property.” On its face, the US argued, the authority extends to any property needed for the project, and the court cannot narrow that reach by inserting words Congress chose to omit.

It also argued that principles of state sovereign immunity do not require a different conclusion; it said Congress has long delegated the right of eminent domain to private actors.

Impact on role of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

In addition, the US brief warned of a potentially profound effect on FERC’s ability to administer the interstate natural gas system, suggesting the 3rd Circuit decision would turn state conservation easements into “a sword against federally approved projects.”

“Under the court of appeals’ decision, all the state needs to preclude any FERC-approved project it opposes is a willing landowner along the route,” the US wrote, adding the state could also use its own eminent domain powers if the landowner was unwilling.

Congress added the section of the NGA on eminent domain, it said, to prevent states from nullifying FERC’s exercise of its exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the transport of gas in interstate commerce.

New Jersey, in arguing against Supreme Court review, had called warnings about implications of the 3rd Circuit ruling overstated, and said the unanimous circuit court judgment reflected the proper application of sovereign immunity law and statutory interpretation rules.

PennEast, in a statement March 10, welcomed the continued US support, which it said “underscores this case presents an issue that cuts across party lines.”

The company said several factors potentially impact its anticipated in-service date. “Among those factors are approval from FERC on the phased approach and approval of the remaining permit applications from Pennsylvania regulators, as well as construction-related considerations,” it said. “We anticipate placing the Phase One facilities in service in 2022 and Phase Two facilities in service in 2024.”

Faced with the adverse 3rd Circuit ruling affecting the route in New Jersey, PennEast had sought permission from FERC to build the project in two phases (CP20-47), with the first in the friendlier regulatory terrain of Pennsylvania. That amendment application faces opposition from environmental groups and local interests at FERC.