Jury Still Out on Debt Bill’s Ability to Deliver Permitting Reform
Will the debt ceiling bill, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” actually get passed? And, will it retain the sections that deal with completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and so-called permitting reform? That’s the gazillion-dollar question. We should know within the next day or so whether the bill, largely as written, will survive. Let’s assume, for the moment, that it does survive and gets adopted. We brought you the preliminary language of the 99-page bill yesterday (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). Section 107 in the bill, called “Timely and Unified Federal Reviews,” provides for permitting reform that speeds up fossil energy and renewable energy projects. Here’s another gazillion-dollar question: Will Section 107 do what it advertises?
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Big news over the weekend. President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a compromise deal to raise the debt ceiling–into the stratosphere. Part of the deal is a provision in the 99-page “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” called Section 324, which expedites the completion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. MVP will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica gas from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Needless to say, anti-fossil fuel nutters began howling at the moon and clawing at their faces upon hearing the MVP news.
Today’s lead story shares the good news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is finally getting a literal “act of Congress” to force its completion (see Biden-McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal Includes Finishing MVP PDQ). One of the provisions in the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023” (debt ceiling bill) removes jurisdiction to hear court cases brought against MVP away from the corrupt U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and gives it to the D.C. Circuit instead. Which may not be the panacea we were hoping for. On Friday, the D.C. Circuit ruled in a case concerning MVP that has the potential to delay the project further. So much for the D.C. Circuit being MVP’s savior…
Last Thursday, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, John Joyce (a physician from Altoona, PA), introduced House of Representatives Bill (HR) 3500, called the “Mountain Valley Pipeline Completion Act” (copy below). Which we find interesting because Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) does not touch PA, although a PA company, Equitrans, is building it. The 303-mile MVP pipeline starts in Wetzel County, WV, and runs through WV into Virginia, ending in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project has been stalled for years due to repeated lawsuits from foreign-funded Big Green groups. HR 3500, aimed at finishing MVP, was co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Carol Miller (R-WV), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Dan Meuser (R-PA), and Alex Mooney (R-WV). Here’s what the bill would do…
We spotted a story from Windsor, Ontario (Canada) that caught our attention. We discovered a new customer for Marcellus/Utica gas might be coming just across the border. The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) that controls Ontario’s electricity supply has approved a plan by Capital Power to build two more natural gas peaking units at its East Windsor Cogeneration Centre in Windsor’s Ford City. Where is Ford City? Just across the Detroit River from Detroit, Michigan, and close the Dawn Hub–a major natural gas hub that gets some of its gas from the M-U.
The American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan economic policy organization that tilts to the conservative side. ACCF advocates for better (and less) regulation, innovation in energy policy, dynamic free trade, and better infrastructure policy. Yesterday the ACCF released a new study that shows the U.S. natural gas market remains “robust” and will have no problem meeting both growing domestic consumption and growing exports–all at relatively low prices. A key point made by the study is that natural gas prices can be even lower, 10% lower, for both ratepayers and for LNG customers–if the government would ease permitting delays for building new pipelines.
Last week MDN told you the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) had given final approval to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to install pipe through 3.5 miles of woodlands, and under the Appalachian Trail, in the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County in West Virginia, in and Giles and Montgomery counties in Virginia for the THIRD time (see 
In November 2021, the Bidenistas initiated a massive power grab to transfer the right of individual states to regulate local natural gas gathering pipelines to the federal government’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (see 
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy company, provides natural gas transportation and storage services with one of the largest underground natural gas storage systems in the United States. Essentially EGTS is a pipeline network that connects to other pipelines to flow and store natural gas in six states: Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. An upgrade of an EGTS metering station in Plum (Allegheny County, PA, near Pittsburgh) is currently under construction and due to be complete “by summer.”
Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) introduced a permitting reform bill (for the third time) to save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from the clutches of colluding leftists who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (see