Senator Manchin forced to remove language approving the 300-mile methane gas pipeline from government spending bill
WASHINGTON, DC: Today, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) was forced to request the removal of language to greenlight the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and reduce public review of major energy projects – “The Dirty Deal” – from a resolution to fund the government through mid-December. Though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had agreed to include those measures in the resolution, they failed to secure the necessary political support in a must-pass bill to fund the government and avoid a shutdown.
CCAN Action Fund, the advocacy arm of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, applauds the death of the Dirty Deal.
Statement from Mike Tidwell, Executive Director for CCAN Action Fund:
“The Dirty Deal was a dying wish of the fossil fuel pipeline industry, and they sent their favorite son, Senator Manchin, to carry it out for them. But in the wake of the passage of the first significant federal climate bill, it is clear that there is no appetite for new fossil fuels in most of this country. We stand ready to oppose any efforts to resurrect the Dirty Deal in a separate bill. After seven years of trying and perpetually failing to build a destructive, unnecessary pipeline through Southwest Virginia, Senator Manchin and the MVP builders should pack up and go home. We are proud of much of our Virginia Congressional delegation for standing up for our neighbors in Southwest, for environmental justice, and for the planet.”
Plans to build the MVP began in 2015, but the company has hit numerous roadblocks in completing the project, including Clean Water Act violations and failures to consider environmental justice impacts. With the project so many years behind, billions of dollars in the hole, and subject to numerous lawsuits, the Dirty Deal is the company’s last ditch attempt to secure the permits necessary to build out the 300-mile methane gas pipeline.
Senator Manchin, who receives three times as much money from the pipeline industry as any other lawmaker, made clear that the MVP is in serious trouble by pushing for special federal exemptions to aid its completion. CCAN and CCAN Action Fund have fought the Mountain Valley Pipeline for the better part of a decade. With this failure on the national stage, we look forward to the day that MVP joins the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Virginia’s growing graveyard of bad fossil fuel investments.
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CCAN Action Fund is the advocacy arm of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, the oldest and largest grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. For 20 years, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
