12 Va. Lawmakers, All Dems, Seek to Deny NatGas for Power Plants
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), a company that serves customers in northeastern Virginia, wants to build new natural gas infrastructure in Prince William and Fauquier counties. VNG is seeking state approval to build 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor), connecting to the mighty Williams Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the region. The Header Improvement Project will deliver natural gas to two new gas-fired power plants. A group of 12 Virginia state legislators, every one of them a Democrat, is trying to sink the project.
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Two weeks ago MDN told you about Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) and their request for state permission to build 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor), connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the northeast Va. region (see 
Disgusting anti-fossil fuel lunatics have hassled the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the Midwest with frivolous lawsuits for years. Last week an Obama-appointed liberal judge serving in Montana, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, vacated a permit for the Keystone project, once again stopping construction. The permit vacated was issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is called a Nationwide Permit 12–the equivalent of a Section 401 permit under the Clean Water Act–allowing projects like pipelines to be built across or under streams, rivers and “wetlands” (swamps). The problem with the judge’s action is that it potentially affects all pipeline projects across the country using an NP12 permit–including the delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia.
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), a company that serves customers in northeastern Virginia, wants to build new natural gas infrastructure in Prince William and Fauquier counties. VNG is seeking state approval to build 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor), connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the region. The Header Improvement Project, as it’s called, will help service VNG’s 300,000 natural gas customers and is needed to deliver natural gas to two proposed new gas-fired power plants.
A newly passed and signed-into-law bill in Virginia, House Bill (HB) 167, purportedly aims to “protect” electric consumers from shouldering the costs of new pipelines that would feed gas-fired power plants. What the bill actually does is remove freedom of choice for utility companies, driving 
A recent column appearing in a Virginia newspaper shares what it believes is a revelation: When big energy/utility companies like Dominion Energy say they will achieve “net-zero carbon emissions,” they don’t mean they will stop using fossil fuels to create energy. Not by a long-shot. What “zero carbon” or “net-zero carbon” means is that all carbon dioxide (generated when burning natural gas to generate electricity, for example) is captured and used for something else. CO2 is not released into the atmosphere. Even though companies like Dominion are able to capture and reuse CO2, and prevent methane from leaking, it’s STILL not good enough for those who irrationally hate fossil fuels.
Last Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking for an extra 45 days to revise an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Also from last week: anti-fossil fuelers (Big Green groups) virulently opposed to MVP (which is 90% built) continued to hound the project by pestering the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) over minor violations the DEQ found in construction activities from September to December. Big Green wants to know what the DEQ is going to “do” about the violations.
In a lawsuit filed last week, three couples who own land along the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Virginia, who don’t want the pipeline crossing their land, are trying to overturn federal approval of MVP by emasculating the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This is not the first time someone has tried to emasculate FERC using MVP.
In October MDN told you Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) had been bullied by the Attorney General in Virginia into agreeing to pay a $2.15 million fine and subject itself to stricter monitoring–an ongoing anal exam–as they complete construction of the pipeline in the state (see 
“Peaker plants” are small electric generating plants that produce electricity for brief periods during high demand. Older peakers were often powered by oil. Newer peakers are powered by natural gas. In early November Dominion Energy floated an RFP (request for proposal) for companies to build a series of peakers (no smaller than 50 megawatts) totaling a combined 1,500 MW to come online beginning 2022 in Virginia. A month later, following criticism from a competitor, Dominion has canceled the RFP…at least for now.
Of all the issues that drives us crazy, this one is near or at the top of the list–the charge that building a low-emissions compressor station for Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) about an hour outside of Richmond, Virginia is “racist” because it will be built in a community founded by emancipated slaves following the Civil War. The so-called “environmental justice” issue.
What appears to be an organized, ongoing effort to stop legal construction activity for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) continues in both Virginia and West Virginia. Out-of-state (paid) protesters chain themselves to equipment and block roads in a “death by a thousand cuts” approach to prevent the completion of the 85% completed MVP project. Is it time to bring racketeering charges against the groups and people behind these activities? We think it is.
MDN first told you about plans to build the Chickahominy Power Station, a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant, in June 2018 (see 
It appears the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has become politicized. Why is it that leftists (like Va. Gov. Ralph Northam) politicize what are supposed to be impartial government agencies? The DEQ has issued a “stop work” order to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for construction activities along a tiny two-mile stretch in Montgomery County. Fine, if there are issues, stop the work. It’s the highly politicized and inappropriate press release the DEQ issued that accompanied the stop work order we object to.