Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has issued a positive update on the impact on endangered species of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said the fight to get the natural gas pipeline finished is not over.
“We are watching this very carefully,” Capito said Thursday during a virtual press briefing. “I am committed to seeing the completion of this pipeline.”
Capito said the USFWS has “extremely vetted the impact” to the environment of the remaining 5 percent of the pipeline and “they are very satisfied there will be no environmental damage.”
Part of that 5 percent crosses Peters Mountain from Monroe County into Giles County, and would go under the Appalachain Trail. Other parts cross waterways.
“But we know the advocates (groups opposing the pipeline) are probably going to bring a lawsuit in the 4th Circuit (in Richmond, Va.),” she said.
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is the court that so far has blocked the progress of the MVP, a 300-mile, 42-inch diameter natural gas pipeline from north central West Virginia running to
Chatham, Va. Federal permitting has been the issue and the court has upheld objections that the permitting was not thorough enough.
The project continues to be also be held up by other lawsuits related to the Clean Water Act.
Capito, along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have made attempts to reform federal permitting to make it a faster and more common sense process and to move jurisdiction in the MVP lawsuit to Washington, D.C. But, so far, efforts have been to no avail.
“I have introduced legislation to move federal permitting along but have not been able to get it across the finish line,” she said, adding that her efforts to move jurisdiction to the more business-friendly D.C. 5th District have also been unsuccessful.
But she is not going to give up.
“I am hopeful the MVP will be successful sooner rather than later,” she said.
he MVP project started out with a $3.5 billion price tag and was projected to be transporting natural gas by late 2018.
But with protests and court cases based on the federal permitting, FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) recently extended the current permits until 2026 and the cost of the MVP is now estimated to be well over $6 billion.
On another issue, Capito said Thursday the Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW), of which she is Ranking Member, held a hearing Thursday on the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment that released toxic chemicals into the air and nearby water.
“The bottom line is, Norfolk Southern is responsible and will pay,” she said of all the cleanup efforts. “They are doing that now and they will continue to do it.”
Capito said she was concerned about the “lack of clear and distinct” information that was communicated to the people in the area, especially from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), which said the area was safe but then returned for more testing.
Thursday’s hearing went well, she said, and topics that came up included how warning systems and safety measures can be improved and the things that went right after the derailment and things that need improvement.
Capito also said the CSX derailment in Summers County, which injured three on board the empty coal train and spilled diesel into New River, brought up a safety measure related the cause, a landslide that blocked the tracks.
She suggested that railways should have a warning system in place that alerts when the tracks are not clear ahead.