From the failed New York Times. More environmental degredation.
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Manchin’s Donors Include Pipeline Giants That Win in His Climate Deal
Hiroko Tabuchi - 8h ago
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BLACKSBURG, Va. — After years of spirited opposition from environmental activists, the Mountain Valley Pipeline — a 304-mile gas pipeline cutting through the Appalachian Mountains — was behind schedule, over budget and beset with lawsuits. As recently as February, one of its developers, NextEra Energy, warned that the many legal and regulatory obstacles meant there was “a very low probability of pipeline completion.”
David Seriff lives near the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. “We’ve been fighting for a long time,” he said.
© Melissa Golden for The New York Times
David Seriff lives near the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. “We’ve been fighting for a long time,” he said.
Jammie Hale lives close to the pipeline.
© Melissa Golden for The New York Times
Jammie Hale lives close to the pipeline.
Then came Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and his hold on the Democrats’ climate agenda.
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Mr. Manchin’s recent surprise agreement to back the Biden administration’s historic climate legislation came about in part because the senator was promised something in return: not only support for the pipeline in his home state, but also expedited approval for pipelines and other infrastructure nationwide, as part of a wider set of concessions to fossil fuels.
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It was a big win for a pipeline industry that, in recent years, has quietly become one of Mr. Manchin’s biggest financial supporters.
Natural gas pipeline companies have dramatically increased their contributions to Mr. Manchin, from just $20,000 in 2020 to more than $331,000 so far this election cycle, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission and tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Manchin has been by far Congress’s largest recipient of money from natural gas pipeline companies this cycle, raising three times as much from the industry than any other lawmaker.
NextEra Energy, a utility giant and stakeholder in the Mountain Valley Pipeline, is a top donor to both Mr. Manchin and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, who negotiated the pipeline side deal with Mr. Manchin. Mr. Schumer has received more than $281,000 from NextEra this election cycle, the data shows. Equitrans Midstream, which owns the largest stake in the pipeline, has given more than $10,000 to Mr. Manchin. The pipeline and its owners have also spent heavily to lobby Congress.
Mr. Hale believes pipeline construction has affected his drinking water.
© Melissa Golden for The New York Times
Mr. Hale believes pipeline construction has affected his drinking water.
The disclosures point to the extraordinary behind-the-scenes spending and deal-making by the fossil fuel industry that have shaped a climate bill that nevertheless stands to be transformational. The final reconciliation package, which cleared the Senate on Sunday, would allocate more than $370 billion to climate and energy policies, including support for cleaner technologies like wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles, and put the United States on track to reduce its emissions of planet-warming gases by roughly 40 percent below 2005 levels by the decade’s end.
A spokesman for Mr. Manchin said the Mountain Valley Pipeline “will help bring down energy costs, shore up American energy security and create jobs in West Virginia.” An official in Mr. Schumer’s office said the pipeline deal “was only included at the insistence of Sen. Manchin as part of any agreement related to this reconciliation bill.”
Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Equitrans, said the company maintained a “high standard of integrity” while engaging with policymakers. She declined to say whether Equitrans had pressed either senator on the pipeline. NextEra Energy, which also develops renewable projects across the country and stands to benefit widely from the bill, did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite concessions like the pipeline deal, major environmental groups as well as progressives in Congress have praised the legislation. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, called it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for the country to enact meaningful climate legislation.
But in Appalachia, where the Mountain Valley Pipeline cuts through steep mountainsides and nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands, the deal has highlighted the economic and social tensions in a region where extractive industries over the generations have produced jobs in coal mines and on fracking rigs but have also left behind deep scars on the land and in communities.
For years, environmental and civil rights activists as well as many Democratic state lawmakers have opposed the pipeline project, which would carry more than two billion cubic feet of natural gas per day out of the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia and through southern Virginia. Construction on the pipeline was supposed to be complete by 2018, but environmental groups have successfully challenged a series of federal permits in court, where judges have found the pipeline developers’ analyses about the effects on wildlife, sedimentation and erosion lacking.
Brush Mountain, where David Seriff lives.
© Melissa Golden for The New York Times
Brush Mountain, where David Seriff lives.
The pipeline deal means Appalachia is again becoming a “sacrifice zone” for the greater good, said Russell Chisholm, a Persian Gulf war veteran and a member of Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights, a coalition of groups that oppose construction.
