The 303-mile long, dreary and aggravating saga of Mountain Valley Pipeline has taken yet another lumbering turn even as construction on the deeply controversial project remains stalled. The turn might or might not push the pipeline toward completion, even as it absolutely compounds MVP’s abysmal PR profile.
MVP opponents had reason to celebrate earlier this year as the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond dealt setback after setback to the 6-year-old, $6.6 billion project, which has already cut a wide swath through private and public properties in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
The three-judge appeals court panel struck down a U.S. Forest Service permit the pipeline needed to build a 3.5 mile stretch through Jefferson National Forest in Giles and Montgomery counties, and voided a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion that the pipeline’s construction would not harm endangered species. The latter caused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to halt review of a pending MVP permit.
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This was the second round of defeats dealt to Mountain Valley by the same panel, leading the company to request that the court select a new panel to hear future cases. The Fourth Circuit denied that request.
Yet the environmental groups, community activists and property owners who want to make sure MVP is never completed soon had to put the champagne back in storage.
First, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted MVP an additional four years to complete the project, ruling again that there is a need for the natural gas the pipeline would deliver. Proponents of the pipeline argue that Russia’s war in Ukraine and other geopolitical crises have made the need for new U.S. production of natural gas even more urgent.
Next came the intervention of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the U.S. Senate’s most conservative Democrat, who last month agreed at last to play ball with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and deliver President Joe Biden a legislative green energy victory in exchange for assistance of sorts for MVP.
The deal Manchin struck with Democratic leaders — if it in fact passes — would move any further legal challenges to MVP before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., which has a record of being more deferential to FERC decisions on pipeline projects than the Fourth Circuit has proven to be.
However, there’s absolutely no guarantee that the D.C. court would prove friendlier to MVP in practice. Not to mention, the optics of Manchin’s intervention when MVP was unable to pull off a judge swap on its lonesome were pretty awful, considering the project’s association with wresting property away from homeowners through eminent domain and earning slaps on the wrist for hundreds of environmental violations.
The people of Appalachia who never wanted the pipeline forced down their throats in the first place feel like they were callously sacrificed for the sake of political machinations, and they’ve vowed to fight even harder.
With that anger and anguish churning the air, FERC responded to public comment on the MVP deadline extension with a tone-deaf response to those who voiced worries about potentially corroded pipes exposed to the elements for years. FERC declared that “concerns raised by commenters on this matter do not justify additional analysis.”
MVP officials provided Roanoke Times reporter Laurence Hammack with thorough answers about how pipes will be inspected for problems if and when construction restarts (“Pipes sit outside as construction delayed,” Sept. 3). Yet skepticism about MVP’s adherence to those procedures during the rush to completion is quite understandable, as is homeowners’ concerns that their ultimate reward for the misfortune of owning property in MVP’s path will be living daily with the risk of a deadly explosion.
The government — a few federal judges excepted — has been and remains in MVP’s corner. Those who have seen their property seized and viewsheds marred feel more cornered than ever. MVP continues to play the role of Goliath, unlikely to be mourned by anyone other than its investors if any David at last succeeds with a slingshot legal gambit.
