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Reaction For and Against FERC Permission for MVP to Start Up
Yesterday, MDN brought you the great news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had given permission to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) late Tuesday to begin service along the 303-mile natural gas pipeline from northern West Virginia to southern Virginia (see FERC Grants Permission to Mountain Valley Pipeline to Start Flowing). As the reality of MVP coming online sets in, supporters are rejoicing, and irrational antis are bitterly complaining about their loss.
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Wonder of wonders. Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted its permission for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to begin flowing natural gas. YES!!!! We are elated! Finally, nine years after MVP filed for permission to build, the pipeline is now (or soon will be) flowing Marcellus/Utica gas to the Southern U.S. This is a great day for all of the Marcellus/Utica.
Is today the day we’ve been waiting and writing about for the past nine years? Possibly! Yesterday, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to say the pipeline is now mechanically complete, meaning the pipeline is in the ground, covered up, fully tested, and ready to begin operations. MVP asked FERC to allow it to begin flowing gas TODAY, June 11. At best, it’s a 50/50 shot that FERC will allow it to begin operations today. No matter. Whether today, tomorrow, or next week, MVP is done and will begin. WE WON!
Williams’ Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project involves expanding the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. Part of the project was completed and went online last year (see 
For all of the griping and complaining and moaning from the radical left (and uppity Virginia horse farmers) about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) being unnecessary and a blight against humanity, wonder of wonders, customers are WAITING for the gas that will flow through MVP! In fact, the CEO of Roanoke Gas Co. says “We were out of gas literally.” Roanoke Gas desperately needs the new supplies that will flow through MVP. In addition, Summit View Business Park in Franklin County will receive gas from MVP, which will boost the park’s efforts to market its 13 available sites.
Four out-of-state pipeline protesters (two from New Jersey, one each from Vermont and Maryland), all senior citizens who thought it was cutesy to block access to work sites for the almost-done Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), are about to learn a hard lesson. They have been sued by MVP for BIG BUCKS — for the costs to compensate for lost time AND for punitive damages. We’ll see if the protesters’ Big Green benefactors will pony up the lawyers and money they need to fight the lawsuits. It’s about time our side begins to play hardball. You play hardball by suing these crazies and making them pay. Kudos to MVP.
In early March, President Joementia Biden nominated three new candidates to become Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners (see 
Newly released information gathered from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shows that as Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) tested its 303-mile pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, some 130 potential problem areas were located. Running a PIG (pipeline inspection gauge) device through the pipeline to check for dents and other weaknesses found 50 “anomalies” that required further excavation work to check. Another 80 excavations were needed after tests using an electric current to probe for weaknesses in the pipeline’s special anti-corrosion coating.
Anti-fossil fuelers and some residents with portions of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) traversing their land are flooding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with comments asking the agency to delay permission for MVP to be placed into service. The latest in-service date MVP outlined to FERC in a recent request for startup permission is “early June” (see 
Yet another out-of-state protester temporarily blocked workers’ access to one of the few Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction sites remaining in Montgomery County, VA, yesterday morning. She was swiftly removed and arrested. According to Virginia State Police, 25-year-old Elsa Schlensker of Cleveland, Ohio, was taken into custody “without incident” and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where she was charged with obstructing the free passage of another.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility company in the country. Last May, TVA announced that it would convert the Kingston Fossil Plant (coal-fired plant) in East Tennessee to a natural gas-fired plant capable of generating 1,500 megawatts of electricity (see 
We suppose it was inevitable following a rupture in a segment of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) during pressurized water testing (see 
Anti-fossil fuel fanatics have a tried-and-true playbook in Pennsylvania. They appeal *every single inch* of new pipeline, no matter where it’s located, whether that pipeline flows natural gas, NGLs, oil, or petroleum products like gasoline. Want to replace an existing pipeline in an area? Antis are against it, saying it will saddle ratepayers with “stranded assets” in a few unspecified years’ time (when “renewables” take over). Want to build a new pipeline? God forbid! They go berserk with all sorts of wild claims about pipelines being racist (being built in places where poor folks of color can’t fight back to stop them). It’s disgusting what these liars will do to oppose a new pipeline. One of their favorite legal tactics in Pennsylvania is to appeal a permit issued by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to the Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), a special court in PA that hears appeals of DEP decisions. However, antis are abusing the PA court system.
Finally, it’s the end of the road for Big Green using (abusing) six uppity Virginia landowners who didn’t want the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to cross their well-groomed horse pastures. The landowners, funded by Big Green and using Big Green lawyers, sued repeatedly to try and overturn the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) right to delegate its eminent domain authority to pipeline companies like MVP in order to build pipelines. Big Green and the landowners knew it wouldn’t stop MVP — the hope was to block all (and we mean ALL) future pipelines from getting built. That was the end game. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will not revisit the case. It had already looked at this case once before. This is well and truly the end of the line for these landowners and Big Green in attempting to gut FERC’s eminent domain authority. Finally.