Appalachian Voices Statement on Kaine-Warner FERC Pipeline Permitting Bill

PRESS STATEMENT
Contact: Peter Anderson, Appalachian Voices Virginia Policy Director, peter@appvoices.org, (434) 249-6446

On Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) reintroduced the Pipeline Fairness, Transparency, and Responsible Development Act, a bill that would add meaningful notice, public participation and landowner rights protections to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s permitting process for interstate gas pipelines. The changes would help ensure that impacted citizens are heard by decision makers and that their concerns are addressed in a timely fashion, allowing residents directly affected by a proposed pipeline to be treated more fairly during the process.

Statement from Appalachian Voices Virginia Policy Director Peter Anderson:

“The Virginia senators’ bill creates much more reasonable rules regarding the way FERC works with landowners in the path of methane gas pipelines, and it improves the permitting process by giving communities near proposed pipelines more rights and input.

Residents who have had the misfortune of being in the path of major fracked-gas pipelines, such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Mountaineer XPress and the canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline know firsthand that the system is rigged against them. This bill is a move towards a system that is much more fair to people who have the misfortune of living in the path of a proposed pipeline.

We urge members of Congress to reject the Manchin-Schumer side deal that attempts to complete the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline and would weaken our bedrock environmental laws. Congress should support the Pipeline Fairness, Transparency, and Responsible Development Act instead.”