‘It’s a deal with the devil’: outrage in Appalachia over Manchin’s ‘vile’ pipeline plan
Taking on the fossil fuel industry in West Virginia was always going to be a David v Goliath type battle, but after years of protests, lobbying and lawsuits, 68-year-old Becky Crabtree thought the community-led resistance had beaten the Mountain Valley pipeline (MVP) in a fair fight.
So when news broke earlier in August that the state’s fossil-fuel friendly senator Joe Manchin had resurrected the beleaguered pipeline, Crabtree, a high school science teacher who teaches students about the climate crisis, felt “numb”.
Manchin, a conservative Democrat who receives more campaign financing from the fossil fuel industry – including pipeline companies – than any other lawmaker in Congress, had agreed to back his party’s historic climate legislation before the crucial midterm elections. But only after he negotiated a side-deal to fast-track the MVP.
“It’s the unfairness that makes me so angry. It’s a deal with the devil,” said Crabtree, 68, who owns a 30-acre sheep farm in Lindside, Monroe county.
The deal is a sweet one for the pipeline’s supporters. Democratic leaders agreed to advance separate legislation in September that would “require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the MVP and give the DC circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation”.
This could help the pipeline company circumvent judges who have suspended construction and overturned permits over environmental concerns, and have future legal cases heard in an appeals court in Washington, which is considered more favourable to developers.
It’s part of a broader set of concessions negotiated by Manchin to diminish environmental protections and expedite permits and construction of pipelines and other energy infrastructure, limiting legal challenges by concerned communities and environmental groups.
It also mandates new oil and gas drilling deals in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico – places that environmentalists have also fought in court to preserve. Any public lands given over to solar and wind developments must be accompanied by millions of acres handed to oil and gas – tying the US to planet-heating energy projects for decades.
Brett Hartl, a campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the side-deal was a “vile tribute” to the fossil fuel industry. “These companies are wrecking our climate and raking in record profits, and more federal help is the last thing they deserve.”
Campaigners also warn that the slew of concessions will sacrifice another generation of Black, Latin, Indigenous and low-income communities, who will bear the brunt of air pollution, noise and displacement from the new projects....
The Mountain Valley pipeline would stretch 303 miles across steep forested Appalachian mountains, farmland and a thousand or so streams, rivers and wetlands, transporting liquified shale gas from north-western West Virginia to southern Virginia....
The pipeline industry’s financial influence in Washington, however, is growing.
So far this year, the industry has donated $331,000 to Manchin – up from $20,000 in 2020, according to federal campaign finance disclosures tracked by Open Secrets. Four Democrats are among the top 20 industry beneficiaries, who include Manchin, who has received more than the next five lawmakers put together, as well as Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Chuck Schumer, the Senate leader from New York who negotiated the deal for Manchin’s vote. Since 2017, Schumer has also raised at least $281,000 from the country’s largest utility, NextEra Energy, a stakeholder in MVP....
Thanks, Joes. January can't come fast enough.
