WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to Mountain Valley Pipeline’s (MVP) application to amend its certificate of public convenience and necessity for the proposed MVP Southgate gas pipeline. MVP is seeking authorization to construct and operate the “Amendment Project,” a modified version of the MVP Southgate project originally proposed in 2018.
The protest filing highlights new expert analysis demonstrating the lack of market need for the pipeline and urges FERC not to authorize MVP’s costly and damaging project. MVP Southgate would extend the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline into North Carolina to deliver more climate-damaging methane gas to Duke Energy and Public Service Company of North Carolina. The Southgate project is part of the unprecedented expansion of gas infrastructure underway across the South, where in just the last several years, industry has proposed enough new pipeline capacity to fuel dozens of new power plants.
A new expert report by London Economics International was also filed with FERC today, concluding that the proposed pipeline is not needed to meet current or future gas demand. The report findings include:
- Both of the pipeline’s proposed shippers, Duke Energy and Public Service Company of North Carolina, can meet projected demand for gas using their existing and other proposed resources—without MVP Southgate.
- Duke Energy will have enough pipeline capacity to meet its electricity generation needs through at least 2040.
- Public Service Company of North Carolina can meet demand for gas on even the coldest winter days through the use of on-system storage and other resources.
“This report confirms what we have long suspected: MVP Southgate can’t be justified by need,” said SELC senior attorney Mark Sabath. “The environmental and community costs of building an unnecessary pipeline are too dire for FERC to approve this project.”
The protest was filed on behalf of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, 7 Directions of Service, Appalachian Voices, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Center for Biological Diversity, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Sierra Club, Wild Virginia, and affected landowners Katie Whitehead and Robert McNutt.
