Mountain Valley Pipeline update: where we find hope
August 7th, 2024
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022, we received an email from an Equation Campaign partner with the opening line: “Can you stand some great news today?” The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had vacated previously approved permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline as a result of numerous environmental policy violations. Later that spring, as we met with the coalition, optimism bubbled. MVP kept losing in court, costs kept ballooning, and it was years delayed. The dangerous and unjustified efforts to build oil and gas infrastructure in the hottest decade in modern history were finally succumbing to common sense.
And yet, on June 14, 2024, the Mountain Valley Pipeline became operational. In an egregious deal, MVP became the bargaining chip in debt ceiling negotiations for Senator Joe Manchin. The Fiscal Responsibility Act ordered expedited approval of all permits needed to complete the pipeline and sideline the assessment and jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit.
Activists gather outside of the White House to demand President Biden to cancel the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
This dirty deal is a heartbreaking homage to the phenomenal coalition that fought the pipeline for 10 years. After a decade of sharp, dedicated, and loving resistance, it took what many describe as an unconstitutional act of Congress to complete it. As we grieve the ongoing desecration of land, the environmental injustice, and the victory of corporate power over life itself, we must raise and honor the successes the movement achieved:
$4,350,000,000 over budget: Movement-forced delays, like lawsuits, construction stays, and permit denials, raised the cost of building MVP to $7.85B, more than double the original budget of $3.5B, sending warning signals to potential pipeline developers and investors elsewhere.
Six years delayed: Operation was originally slated for 2018, but the movement successfully delayed it until 2024 following the undemocratic dirty deal. Nevertheless, the delay spared the climate roughly 241 million metric tons of CO2 over the six years that activists kept MVP out of service, raised risks for future investors, and pushed the project closer to the inevitable sunset of fossil fuel production.
Defeated national-level legislative shortcuts: The coalition beat three prior attempts to throw frontline communities under the wheels of the industry, overcoming great corporate interests and inside-the-Beltway deals.
Hundreds of violations documented to hold MVP accountable: Frontline partners have documented over 500 policy violations and continue to expose both the pipeline’s harms to local ecosystems and communities and the company’s lies about health and safety.
Compromised operations: Even with the pipeline completed, MVP’s backers are facing more hurdles to using the pipeline as intended. Industry experts recently estimated that the line might flow only 40% of the gas it is designed for unless additional projects are built on the Transco Pipeline. A reduction in usage of that magnitude would cut deeply into profits, helping discourage new gas pipeline projects across the region.
Ripple effects: The coordinated campaign to stop MVP sent a loud and clear message to industry experts and leaders across the country. The Pillar Energy CFO perhaps said it best during a meeting of the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy and Manufacturing: “No one in their right mind would try to permit a pipeline to the Eastern Seaboard right now. It’s a losing proposition, unless you’re looking to go into bankruptcy.” We agree, and while we may have lost the battle against MVP, the movement gained ground in the larger war to protect people and the planet from fossil fuel harms.
Local activists lead water walk to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Southgate Extension and its expected harms to the Haw River.
The work continues. Partners on the ground continue to fight to make sure the MVP Southgate Extension doesn’t get built to expand its poisonous footprint. We also want to honor those who put their bodies in front of the grinding gears of oil and gas greed: tree sitters who lived in beloved trees on the pipeline route for 932 days, the hundreds who traveled from their homes in Appalachia to stand in solidarity in front of the White House, and the 50 activists who risked arrest in the final days of construction and whose constitutionally protected rights we continue to support and defend.
As in every campaign for environmental justice, the MVP water protectors, activists, lawyers, and leaders worked tirelessly not just for their beloved lands, neighbors, families, and streams—they fought for all of us.
Equation Campaign is proud to have supported the campaign since 2021, and we honor the contributions of every single organization, individual, and community that participated in the fight. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
Onwards,
Equation Campaign team
