• What the Negative Price of Oil Is Telling Us

    By: Neil Irwin, The New York Times April 21, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic has caused a series of mind-bending distortions across world financial markets, but Monday featured the most bizarre one yet: The benchmark price for crude oil in the United States fell to negative $37.63. That means that if you happened to be in a position to take delivery of 1,000 barrels of oil in Cushing, Okla., in the month of May — the quantity quoted in the relevant futures contract — you could have been paid a cool $37,630 to do so. (That…


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  • ACP Case Could Gut 100 Years of Safeguards for Federal Parks

    By: Kathryn Miles, Politico March 3, 2020 When is a hiking trail not the same as the land it sits on? That’s a question before the Supreme Court, which last week heard oral arguments concerning the siting of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5.1 billion project that, if completed, would transport over a billion cubic feet of gas each day from West Virginia to North Carolina. The arguments were the latest in five years of legal snags for the project that has…


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  • MVP Southgate clears environmental review by FERC

    By: Laurence Hammack, The Roanoke Times February 14, 2020 Plans to extend the Mountain Valley Pipeline 75 miles into North Carolina moved forward Friday, even as the initial project remains mired in legal and regulatory challenges. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that while there would be some environmental damage caused by building the so-called MVP Southgate, it could be minimized to “less than significant levels.” An environmental impact statement released by FERC is a major step forward for the pipeline, which would originate at Mountain Valley’s terminus in Chatham, head southwest through Pittsylvania County and cross into North Carolina,…


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  • What to watch in the Appalachian Trail ACP fight

    By: Niina Farah, E&E News October 7, 2019 Parties on either side of a newly picked Supreme Court case on the Atlantic Coast pipeline see starkly different consequences of justices weighing in on the legal conflict. The high court agreed last Friday to hear an appeal of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Forest Service could not authorize the pipeline to cross hundreds of feet beneath the Appalachian Trail (Greenwire, Oct. 4). Critics of the 4th Circuit decision — the pipeline developers, a coalition of states and other industry groups — see a ruling by…


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  • Pipeline protest reaches downtown Roanoke

    By: Heather Rousseau, The Roanoke Times September 24, 2019 About 150 people gathered in downtown Roanoke to protest against two proposed natural gas pipelines on Monday. Pipeline Protest SUN SiNG Collective performs at a rally with about 150 people gathered in downtown Roanoke Monday protesting against two proposed natural gas pipelines. Protesters from Virginia,…


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  • Coal Ash Is Hazardous. Coal Ash Is Waste. But According to the EPA, Coal Ash Is Not “Hazardous Waste.”

    By: Jeff Turrentine, NRDC September 6, 2019 A memorial to the workers that have become ill or died since they participated in the clean-up of the Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill Coal ash, a catchall term for several kinds of waste left over at power plants that burn coal, typically contains a number of substances harmful to human health—arsenic, chromium, lead, and mercury among them. Coal ash is incredibly dangerous. Short-term exposure…


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  • As Pipeline Construction Booms, Citizens Take Inspections Into Their Own Hands

    By: Brittany Patterson, WV Public Broadcasting August 29, 2019 On a recent hot, August weekend, about a dozen citizens spent three days along the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Armed with cameras, smartphones and drones the volunteers traveled portions of the pipeline’s route under construction from Monroe to Doddridge counties. “There was several things that we saw,” said Summers County resident and organic farmer Neal Laferriere. Laferriere organized the three-day “violations blitz.” He said volunteers documented small problems like poorly-maintained erosion controls as well as much larger ones. “Sediment-laden water in one situation was overflowing…


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  • Federal Court Tosses Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s Key Endangered Species Permits

    By: Brittany Patterson, WV Public Broadcasting July 26, 2019 A federal court has thrown out two key permits for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline. U.S. 4th Circuit Court Chief Judge Robert Gregory said in an opinion issued Friday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t adhere to its mandate to protect endangered species when it fast-tracked re-issuing two permits to the natural gas project proposed to go through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. “In fast-tracking its decisions, the agency appears to have lost sight of its mandate under the ESA: ‘to protect and conserve endangered and threatened…


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  • Controversial Duke Energy ratemaking bill stalls in North Carolina

    By: Elizabeth Ouzts, Energy News Network July 24, 2019 The proposal would allow state regulators to approve multiyear rate increases based on projected spending. A controversial North Carolina bill to allow regulators to approve multiyear rate increases for Duke Energy is stalled in the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Authored by leaders of both parties, Senate Bill 559 cleared the Senate in May and looked poised for passage by the House of Representatives earlier this month.  But it was pulled from the full House calendar July 10, reassigned to committee the following week, and hasn’t been debated or discussed since. The maneuvers are a strong sign…


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  • Five years after Dan River coal ash spill, Duke Energy settlement would add land to Mayo State Park

    By: Lisa Sorg, NC Policy Watch July 22, 2019 The Mayo River in Mayo State Park, Rockingham County (Photo: NC State Parks) This story has been updated with news regarding the purchase and transferal of the 64 acres by Duke Energy. A settlement between Duke Energy and state and federal officials over the 2014 Dan River spill would impose no significant financial penalties, but it would preserve key tracts of land along the Mayo River, according to court documents. Announced Friday, the…


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