Unusually large 42 inch pipe with coating exposed to extensive weathering

SOURCE ~ WV DEP COMPLAINT # 266 Indian Creek 11-24-23

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I appreciate the conversation with Jason Liddle yesterday afternoon and the explanation that MVP working in the stream is not contrary to the MVP Construction plan to open cut the stream, but that the release of sediment downstream is a saturation that may not be allowable. I look forward to learning more about this after a site visit by WV DEP..

>>> This was the original email sent yesterday, 11-24-23:

TO WV DEP and Others Whom It May Concern:

I have a special attachment to this particular place in Indian Creek because it is where I was baptized in the early 80′s and to see an excavator sitting at the exact spot where that occurred was somewhat sacrilegious to me.

All season plunges into Indian Creek are not uncommon

Maury Johnson,
3227 Ellison Ridge,
Greenville, WV 24945

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

Punxsutawney Phil has relatives in West Virginia who care!

>>> Received on January 31 at 8:41 AM

Make sure you join us Thursday, February 2nd, for a special #GroundhogsDay webinar on the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Right now, there are two permits from federal agencies pending approval and you have the opportunity to comment!

Learn how you can send your comments. This webinar is set for 12:00 Noon! (See the recording below.)

#######+++++++#######+++++++########

RECORDING ~ Mountain Valley Pipeline Lunch and Learn February 2, 2023 – WV Rivers Coalition

ACCESS WINDOW~ https://wvrivers.org/2023/02/mvpfeb2023/

YouTube Recording ~ https://youtu.be/42d-68a1-tc

Two permits from federal agencies are pending approval and you have the opportunity to comment on them. This February 2nd webinar discussed how you can craft and submit your comments.

1. You can comment on the US Forest Service permit approval until February 6, through this webform.

2. You can comment on the Army Corp of Engineers permit until February 10, through this webform.

Thank you for your participation at this important time!

Join CCAN's Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin's Dirty Deal!

From the Appeal of Grace Tuttle, Protect Our Water—Heritage—Rights, December 7, 2022

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released the full text of the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022. He also urged his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support amending the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include this comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform and complete the critical Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“Failing to pass the bipartisan, comprehensive energy permitting reform that our country desperately needs is not an acceptable option. As our energy security becomes more threatened every day, Americans are demanding Congress put politics aside and act on commonsense solutions to solve the issues facing us. The Senate must vote to amend the NDAA to ensure the comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform our country desperately needs is included,” said Chairman Manchin.

To read the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022 in full, click here.

To read a summary of the changes, click here.

CCAN Event: RSVP:
https://act.chesapeakeclimate.org/page/46961/data/1

Description: Join CCAN’s Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin’s Dirty Deal!

It’s time. Our senators need to hear from us. We will not stand for Manchin’s dirty deal. We can’t make policy with backroom negotiations that exclude impacted communities. We can’t keep feeding our addiction to fossil fuels.

Our goal is to get 150 residents to email their senator in one night to stop the dirty deal.

6:00-6:15 Latest policy update, Q&A
6:15-6:30 Outreach to personal VA friends and family
6:30-7:00 Textbank with CCAN

>> Grace Tuttle, Development & Programs Coordinator
Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)

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P.S. The members of the US Congress need to hear from you. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is trying to include his Dirty Deal – to roll back bedrock environmental protections and force the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline – in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We can only block this if enough Senators stand up and promise to vote against the NDAA if it includes the Dirty Deal.

Priority List:
Senator Kaine (202) 224-4024
Senator Warner (202) 224-2023
Senator Carper (202) 224-2441
Senator Schumer (202) 224-6542
Senator Schatz (202) 224-3934
Senator Murray (202) 224-2621
Senator Reed (202) 224-4642
Senator Leahy (202) 224-4242
Senator Warnock (202) 224-3643

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

The MVP is unnecessary and an insult to the environment and climate change

Letter to Editor from Jim Kotcon, Sierra Club of West Virginia, Morgantown Dominion Post, October 9, 2022

Hoppy Kercheval’s column (“Manchin’s Miscalculation,” Sept. 30) repeats claims from Sens. Manchin and Capito, who relied on industry propaganda calling for “permitting reform” and weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

NEPA has, for over 50 years, required federal agencies to objectively analyze environmental impacts of proposed projects and to involve the public who will be affected by those agency decisions. This approach is both good science and good public policy. Rational decisions are best made with all the facts, and since agencies cannot be expected to know everything about the impacts of their proposals, getting input from those with expertise and interest just makes sense.

Unfortunately, this approach requires that agencies actually listen to people and consider their concerns. Agencies get into trouble when they try to rubber-stamp a decision already made, rather than objectively considering all the issues and reasonable alternatives.

The proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a classic example of this flawed approach. Courts tend to defer to agency expertise except when the agency is so arbitrary and capricious as to violate federal law. MVP keeps losing in court, not because environmentalists are obstructionists, but because it really is a bad idea — one that violates federal laws meant to protect all of us. The federal agencies that have pushed this have generated NEPA analyses that are so obviously flawed that courts have repeatedly asked that they be redone.

The claim that MVP is needed for domestic security and to supply Europe ignores climate change and the urgent need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Investing billions in a project that will not be completed in time to help Ukraine, but that will be obsolete before it pays for itself, while imposing excessive environmental costs on our land and water, is exactly the kind of bad decision that NEPA is intended to prevent.

In a democracy, legitimate permitting reform would not need to rely on a bill that would arbitrarily mandate a single project and prohibit any appeal by citizens.

>>> Jim Kotcon, W.Va. Chapter of the Sierra Club, Morgantown

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See Also: Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §4321 et seq. (1969)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA’s basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment.

NEPA requirements are invoked when airports, buildings, military complexes, highways, parkland purchases, and other federal activities are proposed. Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), which are assessments of the likelihood of impacts from alternative courses of action, are required from all Federal agencies and are the most visible NEPA requirements.

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

From an Article by Michael Barrick, Appalachian Chronicle, September 18, 2022
.
.
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.

Many feel Sen. Manchin has been an agent for fossil fuels

From an Article by John Bachtell, People’s World, August 3, 2022

Senate Democrats appear on the verge of passing historic legislation to accelerate a national transition to clean energy, reduce energy costs, create tens of thousands of union jobs, and address environmental injustice.

The surprise agreement, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin, W.Va, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y. All 50 Democratic senators, including Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, must support the IRA to pass. Every Republican, fossil fuel driller, and big corporation fiercely oppose it.

Environmental, labor, and social justice organizations, climate scientists, policymakers, and federal, state, and local Democratic lawmakers hailed the deal. They called for swift passage despite shortcomings and concessions to the fossil fuel industry.

The turn of events happened after Manchin torpedoed the Build Back Better (BBB) legislation while a record heat wave baked much of the planet, sparking wildfires and causing flash flooding in Kentucky. Most assumed climate legislation was dead for the remainder of this Congress.

The result was a bitter backlash directed against Manchin, protests, a sit-in by Congressional staffers, and calls for Biden to declare a National Emergency on climate. Guarantees for fossil leasing, extending financing of the Black Lung Trust Fund, separately expediting the permitting process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline across West Virginia, and convincing Manchin the bill would reduce inflation may have convinced him to agree.

The IRA marks the biggest investment in clean energy in U.S. history and is the result of decades of movement-building and battles to pass transformative climate legislation against entrenched opposition. “We’re going to look back in 50 years and say this was the beginning of a great transition,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.

“Rhodium Group modeling shows the IRA can absolutely cut carbon pollution by 40% by 2030. With additional executive and state action, we could be back on track to hit President Biden’s critical goal of a 50% cut this decade,” said Dr. Leah Stokes, leader of Evergreen Action and a climate policy maker involved in crafting the BBB legislation.

According to climate scientists, the world must reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 to avoid surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius and triggering far more catastrophic changes.

The bill strips from the BBB some provisions like the child tax credit. However, it retains most of the original bill’s critical programs, although at lower funding levels. They include $369 billion in funding and tax credits to accelerate the transition toward clean energy technologies, reduction in methane gas emissions, and investments in agriculture, rural economic development, and restoration.

It establishes environmental, labor, and equity standards in public investment. It directs about $60 billion in funding to historically discriminated and vulnerable communities suffering the worst climate change consequences.

One such mechanism is a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to make community renewable energy investments. The climate bank would lend $28 billion for “low-interest loans across the country. A small town in Ohio could say we want to do over our public housing stock completely. Okay, come to the climate bank. Or a community that wants to install solar panels on their town dump. Okay, we’ll help finance it,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

The bill contains tax credits for consumers to purchase new and used electric vehicles and partially funds the conversion of the USPS truck fleet to electric vehicles. It provides corporate tax credits to produce solar and offshore wind farms, geothermal infrastructure, batteries, and green technology production facilities.

The bill makes it easier for working-class households to winterize their homes and buy electric heat pumps and induction stoves. Studies show the more renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other products manufactured, the cheaper they become, which is not the case with fossil fuel energy production.

The bill also allocates $64 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2024 and allows Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with Big Pharma.

Lawmakers maintain transitioning to renewables would also reduce energy costs and address Manchin’s stated concern about inflation. “Fossil fuels have driven 41% of inflation,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “So, when we talk about investments in clean energy, that is one of the biggest components of price increases consumers face. Households will save on average about $1,800 a year in energy bills.”

Lawmakers drafted the bill to bypass Republican obstruction through the budget reconciliation process. It needs every Democrat on board, and with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, only 51 votes are required rather than the 60 votes under the Senate filibuster rule.

Sinema has been silent on her support and is under enormous pressure from giant corporations to kill the bill. Her concerns seem to revolve around taxes on the wealthy and corporations, which raise $739 billion in revenue to cover the bill’s costs. The IRA does not raise taxes on workers making less than $400,000 annually.

Sinema has repeatedly expressed opposition to the “carried interest charge,” a tax on profits hedge fund managers make insisted on by Manchin. The far more significant issue is corporate opposition to a minimum 15% tax on corporate profits over $1 billion. Sinema has previously supported the tax, but the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, which shower her with contributions, wants it defeated.

“If Sinema, a one-time Green Party activist, derailed the most significant federal climate bill ever while Arizona faces mounting impacts of climate change, it would be an incredible repudiation of everything she’s stood for her entire life,” tweeted Atlantic columnist Ronald Brownstein. Markey also indicated senators would work with Sinema and get the deal done one way or another.

The IRA comes with difficult compromises to gain the vote of Manchin. The bill mandates onshore and offshore lease sales, but they are to be more restricted and carry higher royalty costs. Ultimately, the plummeting production costs of renewables will make oil drilling unnecessary.

Besides, the total impact of the new leasing on the climate could be minimal, according to one study. “For every ton of emissions increases generated by [the bill’s] oil and gas provisions, at least 24 tons of emissions are avoided by the other provisions,” concludes Energy Innovation.

NOTE ~ See the original Article (here) for four more paragraphs of political commentary.

Virginia environmental groups call for a declaration of climate emergency & protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Richmond (8/2/22)

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, August 2, 2022

A deal between Democratic congressional leadership and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III over sweeping federal climate legislation could force the completion of Mountain Valley Pipeline, according to a one-page summary of the agreement’s provisions obtained by The Washington Post.

The final item on the summary reads: “Complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

Since the surprise 11th-hour deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Manchin resurrected President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda last week, Virginia environmental groups and many landowners in the state’s southwestern region have been waiting uneasily to learn the agreement’s terms.

Numerous national news outlets reported that Manchin’s support was linked to promises by Democratic leaders to pass separate legislation smoothing the fraught federal permitting process for fossil fuel pipelines such as Mountain Valley, a 303-mile-long conduit planned to carry gas from the Marcellus shale fields of West Virginia into Virginia.

The summary released Monday, which a Manchin spokesperson confirmed Tuesday reflects the provisions the senator is seeking, offers the clearest look yet at what those promises are. For Mountain Valley, the asks are twofold: First, require federal agencies “to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation” of the pipeline. Second, transfer jurisdiction over legal cases concerning the pipeline from the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit.

Lee Williams, director of Green New Deal Virginia and advocacy chair of the Richmond-area Falls of the James chapter of the Sierra Club, reacted to the proposal with dismay. Environmental groups “want everything” that’s in the federal climate bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, she said. “We’ve been asking for it for the last decade. Unfortunately, to get Sen. Manchin to vote for it, they literally threw Southwest Virginia under the bus.”

Exactly what Democratic leaders promised Manchin, however, remains unclear. Despite the one-page summary that has been released, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) said during a Tuesday teleconference that “there is no connection between voting on the Inflation Reduction Act and then having to vote for the Mountain Valley Pipeline or a permitting bill.” Also, “The deal was (that) in exchange for getting an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act, we will have the opportunity to debate and vote on permitting improvements, but no one’s made commitments about how they’re going to vote, and I’m certainly not going to make a commitment until I see what that bill is,” he said.

Valeria Rivadeneira, a spokesperson for Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D), said the senator would review the proposal “once the full legislative text is made available.”

Originally expected to be completed by 2018, Mountain Valley Pipeline has been hampered by staunch opposition in both Virginia and West Virginia, hundreds of environmental violations and a string of successful legal challenges in the 4th Circuit that have repeatedly stripped the project of necessary federal permits. Construction has proved especially halting along a Southwest Virginia corridor that crosses through part of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles, Craig and Montgomery counties.

This summer, with few immediate breakthroughs evident, the developers sought permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has authority over pipeline construction, to extend its deadline another four years.

With delays and costs mounting, investors have become increasingly skeptical that the pipeline will ever be completed. In a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, project investor NextEra Energy wrote that “continued legal and regulatory challenges have resulted in a very low probability of pipeline completion.”

The deal with Manchin could change all that. Amid news of the agreement, shares in lead pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream soared to a three-month high Tuesday.

“MVP is being recognized as a critical infrastructure project that is essential for our nation’s energy security, energy reliability, and ability to effectively transition to a lower-carbon future,” Equitrans spokesperson Natalie Cox wrote in an email.

More than 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines exist in the U.S., she noted in a lengthy statement. “None of these existing pipelines have undergone the extensive level of environmental research, analysis and review that has been performed on the MVP project.”

The reforms to the federal energy permitting process outlined in the summary document, which would include timelines for permitting reviews and a statute of limitations for court challenges, leave Virginia environmental groups in a tight spot. Organizations that last week hailed the sudden reappearance of federal climate action are now left scrambling to decide whether they can swallow a deal that includes Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project many have spent years opposing.

“We’re not going to sit by and roll over and let Southwest Virginia be a sacrifice zone,” Williams told the Mercury Tuesday after leading a demonstration in downtown Richmond calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency, one of many organized by activists nationwide. “But we don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line.”

We don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line. Some groups have already come out in opposition.

“We firmly oppose any approach by Congress that sacrifices frontline communities as part of a political bargain,” said Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator for environmental and economic development nonprofit Appalachian Voices, in a statement. The group’s North Carolina field coordinator, Ridge Graham, called any legislation requiring completion of Mountain Valley “unacceptable.”

But others were reluctant to speak on the record, indicating they are still sorting out their stances in a rapidly evolving situation.

Regardless of the Manchin deal, Kaine on Tuesday emphasized the need for reforms to federal pipeline permitting, saying he thought FERC’s initial review of Mountain Valley had been “shoddy.” Also, “I view many of the controversies that are connected with the Mountain Valley Pipeline as having been sort of stoked by an inadequate federal permitting process through FERC,” he said, citing “in particular the unwillingness or inability of FERC to get information out to the public and appropriately take public comment and then take that into account in terms of deciding (a) whether a pipeline was necessary and (b) whether the proposed route was the right route.”

A spokesperson later said that Sen. Kaine believes improving permitting “is preferable to having members of Congress decide outcomes on individual energy infrastructure projects.”

Both Kaine and Warner, as well as Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, have previously proposed federal legislation to change the federal review process for proposals and clarify when eminent domain can be exercised. Those bills were crafted in response to not only Mountain Valley Pipeline but the Dominion Energy and Duke Energy-backed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina via Virginia but was canceled in July 2020.