"Efforts to speed a long-delayed, overbudget natural gas project in Sen. Joe Manchin’s home state by revamping federal permitting rules will play out in agencies and courts for now, after Congress balked last month.
Manchin (D-W.Va.) failed to persuade his colleagues to back his energy permitting bill in stopgap spending legislation. But the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Appalachia could get the green light in coming months and go into operation by the second half of 2023 — the schedule the lead partner, Equitrans Midstream, proposed for the pipeline set to cross parts of West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
“It looks feasible to us,” said Christi Tezak, managing director of research at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent energy policy research firm. “Anybody who is saying the Mountain Valley Pipeline is in limbo isn’t paying attention.”
The next key date in the pipeline’s journey is Oct. 25, when the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will hear oral arguments in a case related to a Clean Water Act permit for Mountain Valley."
Kellie Lunney, Daniel Moore, and Stephen Lee report for Bloomberg Environment October 6, 2022.
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