By Charles Boothe, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Both West Virginia U.S. Senators continue to be disappointed that attempts for federal permitting reform needed to speed up completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) remain stalled.
“This is an enormous disappointment for me, for our state and for jobs,” Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said during a virtual press briefing Thursday. “It makes no sense at all not to move forward to use our energy resources…”
The MVP, a 303-mile natural gas pipeline that runs from north central West Virginia to Chatham, Va., is about 95 percent complete.
But court cases regarding federal permits needed to cross streams and national forest land have tied up completion of the pipeline, which was initially scheduled to open in late 2018, but now the existing permits have been extended to 2026 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)…
