Groups, Lawmakers Demand FERC Deny Mountain Valley Pipeline Extension for NC

The Sierra Club and other advocacy groups on Tuesday highlighted the growing chorus of residents, political leaders, and organizations opposed to a partially built fracked gas pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia along with a proposed expansion into North Carolina.

The latest wave of opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) comes in the form of public comments submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding a potential three-year extension to complete the Southgate project. Unlike the initial portion of the pipeline, construction has not begun on the North Carolina section.

"The future we want to build for our communities starts today, holding our regulators accountable and ensuring we never see the day when this dangerous and unnecessary project harms communities," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley.

"North Carolinians refuse to be led on by greedy energy corporations, and time and again our state's residents have told legislators and regulators this pipeline and its extension are not needed," she added. "With no trees cut, no pipe laid, and no meaningful headway to commence construction, we ask decision-makers to deny this pipeline from ever harming these communities."

"With no trees cut, no pipe laid, and no meaningful headway to commence construction, we ask decision-makers to deny this pipeline from ever harming these communities."

Sierra Club joined Appalachian Voices, Good Stewards of Rockingham, Clean Water for North Carolina, Haw River Assembly, North Carolina Conservation Network, 7 Directions of Service, and the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition for a letter urging FERC "to find that there is no good cause to grant an extension of time for the project's certificate of public convenience and necessity."

"This is a clear opportunity for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to do its due diligence and protect the public interest and the environments of Virginia and North Carolina by sending MVP back to the drawing board," Appalachian Voices North Carolina program manager Ridge Graham said Tuesday.

Emily Sutton of Haw River Assembly argued that the Southgate project "provides no public necessity or benefit for North Carolinians that outweighs the destruction of the places that we love."

"The Haw River is a lifeline for our communities and the ecosystems that depend on it, providing drinking water, recreational access, flood control, and critical habitat for sensitive wildlife," Sutton explained. "This project threatens to irreparably destroy the health of this watershed. When given the opportunity to fight to protect it, our communities and the legislators that represent them made their voices heard."

Along with the coalition of advocacy groups, the NAACP Virginia State Conference, 22 Virginia legislators, 52 North Carolina lawmakers, Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Congresswomen Valerie Foushee and Kathy Manning, both North Carolina Democrats, sent FERC comments opposing the project.

Detailing their three main reasons for asking FERC not to extend the project's certificate, the congresswomen wrote: "First, the MVP Southgate is widely opposed... Second, North Carolina and Virginia regulators rejected permit applications for the MVP Southgate in 2021, and the company has failed to diligently pursue new applications."

"Finally, FERC's original need determination for the MVP Southgate pipeline is now woefully outdated," they continued, also calling for a new 30-day comment period for landowners and communities to weigh in on MVP, which remains tied up in legal challenges.

Last month, after President Joe Biden signed debt ceiling legislation he negotiated with congressional Republicans that included language to fast-track completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, FERC said the developer "has all necessary authorizations" for the project in West Virginia and Virginia, and "is therefore authorized to proceed with all remaining construction."

However, earlier this month a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuity temporarily halted construction of a section in the Jefferson National Forest. Despite the president's climate pledges and extreme heat sparking fresh demands for ditching fossil fuels, the Biden administration has joined the pipeline developer, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), some GOP lawmakers, and other MVP proponents who are asking the nation's Supreme Court to block the order.

As two Western Pennsylvania Republicans in Congress also weighed in, Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society—whose lawsuit led to the order pausing some MVP construction—told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday that those behind the pipeline are "attempting yet another end run around justice."

"Construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest has been on hold for years—the 4th Circuit has simply maintained the status quo while this ongoing, important legal challenge to the destructive pipeline is heard in court," Williams said. "The order halting construction is lawful, and it should alarm every American when Congress ignores the vital role of an independent court system in our constitutional structure."