skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Critics Say Unnecessary Pipelines Will Cost WV Consumers

play audio
Play

Monday, September 19, 2016   

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Huge gas pipelines now seeking approval aren't needed but will make utility rates spike, according to their critics.

Federal regulators have issued a preliminary Environmental Impact Statement for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a $3.2 billion project that would run 300 miles across West Virginia and Virginia. Joe Lovett, executive director of Appalachian Mountain Advocates, said it's one of six similar lines proposed to carry Marcellus and Utica gas to eastern markets. Even though they're not needed, he said, the pipeline builders and utilities are allowed to pass along their costs plus a hefty guaranteed profit.

"So, it's a double hit to ratepayers," Lovett said. "It's a total scam, and those rates will be passed along to ratepayers. So, both of these pipelines are going to raise your utility bills."

A spokeswoman for the pipeline said two years already have been spent planning and developing the pipeline, and hundreds of adjustments have been made to protect the public interest. The companies have argued that the projects are being built to meet expected demand in eastern Virginia and the Carolinas.

Lovett said regulators allow pipeline developers to claim costs plus a guaranteed 14 percent profit - and that's separate from the 10 percent or 11 percent assured profit for the utility that buys the gas. He said costs and profit for the MVP, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and others would be shifted to consumers, who have little choice but to pay it. He added that a study by Synapse Energy Economics found enough existing pipeline capacity to supply Virginia and the Carolinas through 2030.

"Synapse determined that neither the Mountain Valley nor the Atlantic Coast Pipeline are necessary to meet the needs of getting gas produced in West Virginia or Pennsylvania to market," Lovett said.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has said it found "limited adverse environmental impacts, with the exceptions of impacts on forest," from the MVP. Lovett disputed this, and said it's a mistake for FERC to consider each pipeline project separately. He's convinced it's likely to cause overbuilding - at the expense of consumers, landowners and the environment.

"So, as long as FERC continues to analyze pipelines in isolation," he said, "it can't make a fair determination about whether they're necessary and what the alternatives are to those."

The preliminary EIS for the Mountain Valley Pipeline is online at ferc.gov. The Synapse study is at abralliance.org.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Iowa families can apply for up to $7,600 a year for private school costs. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

An ethics committee in the Republican-led Iowa House has dismissed a complaint filed by a group of community activists against a state lawmaker for hi…


play sound

Each spring, hundreds of thousands of California high school seniors have to figure out if they can afford to go to college in the fall - and two new …

Health and Wellness

play sound

A health care workforce shortage in New Hampshire is leaving Alzheimer's patients and their families with few options for treatment. Patients facing …


South Dakota ranks 49th in the country for its contribution to indigent legal defense costs, according to a 2023 report from the Indigent Legal Services Task Force. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

South Dakota is creating an Office of Indigent Legal Services after House Bill 1057 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support this month…

Environment

play sound

A Knoxville-based environmental group is voicing concerns over what it sees as an increasing financial strain imposed on taxpayers by nuclear weapons …

Environment

play sound

A bipartisan law set to take effect this summer prohibits foreign adversaries from buying Hoosier farmland. The signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb was …

Social Issues

play sound

Today, people across Arizona are voting in the Presidential Preference Election, a chance for registered Democrats and Republicans to choose their …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021