By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — President Joe Biden has wasted no time in changing the nation’s environmental agenda after taking office Wednesday, triggering blowback from the state’s congressional leaders and giving conservationists hope for greater environmental protection in years to come.
Biden recommitted the United States to the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty aimed at limiting global warming, and revoked a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline that was slated to carry oil from the Canadian province of Alberta down to Nebraska.
The new president also did something that dedicated Mountain Valley Pipeline opponent Maury Johnson, of Monroe County, is happy about — naming Richard Glick the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the regulatory body that reviews proposals to build interstate natural gas pipelines and regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil.
Glick has cast several minority votes to slow down Mountain Valley Pipeline development, citing incomplete permitting for the project. Now he’s chairman of the commission, which recently got two new members…