"This project is not inevitable, and is completely counter to the overwhelming evidence that we must stop creating new fossil fuel infrastructure immediately."
Empty pipeline segments are shown on the property of Maury Johnson, a local farmer and landowner challenging the Mountain Valley Pipeline, on August 26, 2022 in Greenville, West Virginia.
(Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
JESSICA CORBETT
May 04, 2023
A coalition of climate groups this week called out the Biden administration's support for the partially completed Mountain Valley Pipeline, highlighting how its ongoing construction and potential operation threaten "the well-being of people, endangered species, streams, rivers, farms, national forests, and the planet."
The letter, led by Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) and 7 Directions of Service and backed by 149 other organizations, is in response to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm writing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last month to reiterate the administration's position on the contested 303-mile fracked gas pipeline across Virginia and West Virginia.
"We are incredibly disappointed with your recent actions to promote the destructive and unneeded Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)," the climate coalition wrote to Granholm, noting that her letter to FERC coincided with President Joe Biden signing an executive order to implement "environmental justice policy across the federal government."
"You should be supporting environmental justice as the bedrock of every new policy and piece of infrastructure, advocating for climate reparations, and aggressively promoting distributed, decentralized renewable energy and energy democracy."
After condemning the administration's endorsement of the pipeline and recent approvals of the Willow oil and Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects as "hypocritical betrayals," given Biden's campaign trail pledges, the coalition laid out how the MVP impacts "livelihoods, drinking water sources, property values, and important cultural resources," pointing to Indigenous cultural sites as well as communities of "low-income, elderly, and medically underserved populations" dependent on private wells.
MVP construction has involved over 500 violations of permit conditions, laws, and regulations, the letter emphasizes, and almost 75% of the route "slices through 'moderate-high' or 'high' landslide risk terrain."
The pipeline developer's website states that "MVP's total project work is nearly 94% complete, which includes 55.8% of the right-of-way fully restored." While proponents of the project often cite the former figure, letter signatories are drawing attention to the latter—and that completion would require complex construction involving "incredibly complex and fragile" water crossings.
"The MVP, its greedy political backers, and some journalists continue to claim that the project is nearly complete despite the company's own repeated reports that it is just over half complete with some of the hardest construction yet to come, including hundreds of stream crossings," POWHR managing director Russell Chisholm told Common Dreams.
"This disinformation is not only an insult to frontline communities monitoring and enduring the unfinished pipeline's construction, but it furthers the risk of another planet-killing fossil fuel pipeline built during a climate crisis... on a planet that we all live on," Chisholm added. "Shame on all people in power who tout this falsehood."
Released as climate scientists continue to stress the need for a swift global transition to renewable energy, the letter argues that "this project is not inevitable, and is completely counter to the overwhelming evidence that we must stop creating new fossil fuel infrastructure immediately."
Taking aim at claims in the energy secretary's letter, the coalition wrote:
Asking the commission to proceed "expeditiously" with any further action on the project and misstating the project's relation to "national security" while providing no evidence undermines the administration's commitment to advancing environmental justice. An economy tied to fossil fuels during a climate crisis is unpredictable and makes us vulnerable to foreign governments and the greed of corporate CEOs. This country's energy independence can only come from a swift and just renewable energy transition. This will help protect us from foreign supply chain disruptions and conflicts, as well as deliver lower costs to consumers. The MVP will not assist our allies in Europe, and nor is it needed in the Southeast as you claim. No matter where MVP's gas is intended to be delivered, sacrificing communities to free up gas to export overseas for corporate profit is not "national security." Building this project prolongs fracked gas buildout, accelerates LNG infrastructure buildout and export, and sacrifices communities, all of which are counter to the just future we deserve.
Your letter contains open appeals for dangerous distractions that will prop up the fossil fuel industry for decades to come. The dangerous distractions of carbon capture and hydrogen propagate the untrue belief that we can continue wholesale destruction of the earth, continue creating sacrifice zones, release millions of tons of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel projects, and continue massive corporate capture of regulatory agencies while embarking on a just transition off of fossil fuels. Instead, you should be supporting environmental justice as the bedrock of every new policy and piece of infrastructure, advocating for climate reparations, and aggressively promoting distributed, decentralized renewable energy and energy democracy.
"Your letter states that MVP is part of the clean energy transition. In reality, MVP would exacerbate the very climate crisis that is causing an increasing number of extreme weather events," the organizations continued, referencing expert estimates that its "lifecycle would be comparable to the operation of 26 to 37 new coal-fired power plants."
"We request that you immediately rescind your letter of support for the project," the coalition concluded, "and that you meet with directly impacted communities as soon as possible who live on the route of the project, so you can gain an increased understanding of the destruction and danger that you are promoting."
The groups' letter comes as U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—whose personal fortune and political campaigns are tied to fossil fuels—renews his push for a "dirty deal" on energy permitting reforms, despite three defeats last year. On Tuesday he introduced the Building American Energy Security Act, which calls for the completion of the MVP.
In a backroom deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last summer, Manchin agreed to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) if Democrats—who then controlled both chambers of Congress—subquently pushed through his permitting measure. Progressive lawmakers and grassroots opposition have so far blocked such efforts, but the House is now narrowly held by Republicans willing to serve Big Oil, and Manchin expressed confidence this week that he can advance a bipartisan bill.
Despite Manchin's recent votes to gut some of Biden's climate and environmental policies, the White House is backing his bill. "We supported it last year, we'll support it this year," John Podesta, who directs IRA implementation for the president, toldReutersTuesday. "It's a high priority for us to try to find a path forward on bipartisan, permanent reform."
Meanwhile, "dirty deal" critics remain committed to killing it. According to Chisholm, "Sen. Manchin is desperate to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline through federal shortcuts that circumvent normal regulatory and judicial processes because he knows our movement is growing stronger every day and we will stop the unnecessary, unwanted climate nightmare that is the MVP."
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