Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Split FERC Allows MVP to Restart Construction Near National Forest
The flaky Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, who lately has taken to stabbing natural gas pipelines in the back (see FERC Changes How it Approves NatGas Pipes, Chatterjee a Backstabber), flipped back to supporting pipelines on Wednesday as he joined the two level-headed Republican commissioners in voting to allow Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to partially resume construction near national forest lands, denying a stay request filed by a coalition of environmental groups including the odious Sierra Club.
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Equitrans Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which stretches 303 miles from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA, is backed into a corner by anti-fossil fuelers. The project is 92% complete and in the ground, yet somehow antis have successfully blocked an Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) that allows the project to cross creeks and rivers and mud puddles. Antis have convinced three leftist judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the NWP12 permit–twice. But, MVP has just outmaneuvered the antis.
Don’t you love playing a game with a child and part of the way through the game, the child simply changes the rules for how the game is played (particularly when they are losing)? That’s what comes to mind with the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) recent action in disallowing any pipeline bigger than 36 inches to use a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) to cross creeks, rivers, and wetlands. The move is meant to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 42-inch pipeline, from finishing its installation work (the pipeline is 92% complete).
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) had laid 30 miles of pipeline and had cut trees for 222 miles along the 600-mile route before Dominion decided last summer it no longer wanted to be in the interstate pipeline business, canceling ACP (see 
Down but not out. That’s the best way to describe a $346 million pipeline project in northeastern Virginia called the Header Improvement Project. On Dec. 1 the Virginia State Corporation Commission dismissed a request to approve the project. Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) said it will resubmit the project under a new docket/request.
It seems pretty certain at this point that Joe Biden will seize control of the White House come Jan. 20 (although we still hold out hope for a Supreme Court intervention against the 
Last December MDN told you about a second natural gas-fired power plant planned for Charles City County, Va. (near Richmond) being developed by C4GT (see 
Enough! How many times do we have to put up with Obama/Clinton liberal Democrat judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit blocking the legal and legitimate construction of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)–a project which is 92% in the ground and done! Last Friday the clowns did it again for the umpteenth time–slapping a “temporary” order blocking construction because the anti-America, Russia-backed Sierra Club filed yet another frivolous lawsuit against the project.
Some fantastic news to share. Last Friday the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued the second of three necessary permits required to finally finish the 92% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project in Virginia and West Virginia. The Army Corps reissued a permit they previously issued (but got overturned by Big Green groups in court), a Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12, allowing the project to cross over or under some 1,000 or so creeks, rivers, and wetlands.
Democrats are nothing if not creative. A leftist Democrat in the Virginia legislature, Del. Chris Hurst (Montgomery County) has introduced a bill to try and kill the remaining construction of the 92% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Dems couldn’t stop the project in the courts. They couldn’t stop it with nutjobs living in the tops of trees for months on end. They couldn’t get lefty Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam to stop it. So now they’re trying this: A bill that would require *any* company hiring a crew of 50 or more “temporary” workers during the COVID-19 pandemic to receive prior approval from the Democrat Commissioner of Dept. of Labor and Industry first.
Amid all of the frivolous lawsuits and regulatory actions brought by Big Green, aimed at blocking progress on important projects like the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from West Virginia to southern Virginia (90% complete), progress is still happening for new pipeline projects. One of those new projects is MVP Southgate, a 75-mile extension of MVP that will run from southern Virginia into North Carolina.
Yet another lawsuit trying to emasculate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by attacking its right to delegate eminent domain authority to pipeline builders has been tossed in federal court. Several of these cases have been tried using Marcellus/Utica pipeline projects. This latest case was brought by uppity, privileged landowners in Virginia against the Equitrans Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project.