mtn valley pipeline
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oops disambig</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/03/federal-court-deals-blow-noxious-fracked-gas-mountain-valley-pipeline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/03/federal-court-deals-blow-noxious-fracked-gas-mountain-valley-pipeline</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>federal Court Deals Blow to 'Noxious Fracked Gas' Mountain Valley Pipeline</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"MVP is not compatible with a healthy planet and livable communities," said a Sierra Club campaigner. "MVP must not move forward."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JESSICA CORBETT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>February 3, 2022</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Climate campaigners celebrated Thursday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit delivered yet another blow to a controversial gas project spanning over 300 miles in Virginia and West Virginia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This decision again reinforces the truth that this destructive project must not be allowed to continue."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"At a time when we need to urgently move away from fracked-gas pipelines and all the harms they bring—from impacts to endangered species to damage to water quality to climate change—the law and science prevailed in this case," declared Anne Havemann, general counsel of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A three-judge panel from the Richmond-based federal appeals court threw out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services' assessment of how the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) would impact two endangered fish species: the Roanoke logperch and the candy darter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If a species is already speeding toward the extinction cliff, an agency may not press on the gas. We urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider this directive carefully while reassessing impacts to the two endangered fish at issue, especially the apparently not-long-for-this-world candy darter," Judge James Wynn wrote in the court's opinion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We recognize that this decision will further delay the completion of an already mostly finished pipeline," Wynn added, "but the Endangered Species Act's directive to federal agencies could not be clearer: 'halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the five companies behind the pipeline said that "we remain committed to completing the MVP project and believe the concerns associated with MVP's biological opinion can be addressed by the agency," climate campaigners expressed hope this will help kill the project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Sacred life prevailed today with the court's acknowledgment of the harmful impact MVP has on everything in its path, specifically endangered and threatened species," said Russell Chisholm, co-chair of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition. "Holding MVP accountable to the law is key to the ultimate cancellation of this noxious fracked gas pipeline."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This decision not only protects the candy darter and other endangered species," he continued, "it sets us on course to stop MVP, decisively transition away from deadly fossil fuels, and reroute towards a renewable economy on a livable planet."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Calling the court's move a "sweetly welcome decision in our fight to stop the ravage of MVP," Roberta Bondurant of Preserve Bent Mountain—which is part of the POWHR Coalition—pointed out that the local opponents along the pipeline's route "have fought relentlessly, and at unspeakable costs, to protect forest, meadow, and waters of our venerable Appalachians."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Anderson, Virginia policy director for <b>Appalachian Voices</b>, noted that "communities in this region rely on its rich biodiversity to support many recreational and economic opportunities."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While lambasting the failure of "agencies that should be guardians of our most precious resources and the public interest, Wild Virginia conservation director David Sligh welcomed the win for "sensitive and valuable species, which have already been harmed by MVP's pollution."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This decision again reinforces the truth that this destructive project must not be allowed to continue," Sligh said. "The company needs to face that fact now and should be forced to help heal the wounds it has inflicted."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Along with cheering the "incredible victory" in court, Jared Margolis, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, put the controversial project into a broader context.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a fossil fuel nightmare that threatens the essential habitat of imperiled wildlife," he said. "These projects lock us into an unsustainable spiral of climate change that inflicts incredible damage to vulnerable species. That cycle must end."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a fossil fuel nightmare that threatens the essential habitat of imperiled wildlife."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thursday's decision is "the third blow the pipeline has received in just over a week," Virginia Mercury reported, noting that on January 25, the same court "yanked the project's Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management approvals, finding that those agencies' evaluations of impacts had been inadequate."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Acknowledging the project's recent setbacks, Sierra Club senior director of energy campaigns Kelly Sheehan—whose group argued the case on behalf of conservation groups—said that "the previous administration's rushed, shoddy permitting put the entire project in question."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Now, the Biden administration must fulfill the commitments it has made on climate and environmental justice by taking a meaningful, thorough review of this project and its permitting," she said. "When they do, they will see the science is clear: MVP is not compatible with a healthy planet and livable communities. MVP must not move forward."</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> report</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.commondreams.org/news<b>/2022/03</b>/30/despite-splashy-net-zero-vows-big-banks-dumping-trillions-fossil-fuels</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="mb-2" id="node-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; line-height: 1.125; margin-bottom: 1rem !important;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">despite 'Splashy' Net-Zero Vows, Big Banks Dumping Trillions Into Fossil Fuels</font></span></h1><div class="block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="headlinefield-subtitle text-lg tracking-tighter leading-tightest" style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.1px; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"With Wall Street banks leading the charge, these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all."</font></div></div><div class="block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="py-5 d-flex align-items-start" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex !important; align-items: flex-start !important; padding-top: 2.5rem !important; padding-bottom: 2.5rem !important;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="text-xs text-uppercase font-weight-bold mb-0" style="margin-top: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px !important; text-transform: uppercase !important; font-weight: 700 !important;"><span lang="en" about="/author/jake-johnson" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jake-johnson" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JAKE JOHNSON</font></a></span></p><span class="text-xs" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 30, 2022</font></span></div></div></div><div class="block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="headlinebody prose node__body" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 800;">Flouting their public vows</span> to put themselves and their clients on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's 60 largest private banks have provided a total of $4.6 trillion in financing for the fossil fuel industry since the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's according to the latest edition of <a href="https://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2022/03/Banking-on-Climate-Chaos-2022.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Banking on Climate Chaos</span></a>, an annual report that tracks the banking industry's funding of oil and gas initiatives that are <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/22/rich-nations-must-cut-oil-and-gas-2034-keep-climate-hopes-alive-report" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">threatening</a> global hopes of reining in carbon pollution and averting climate disaster.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In 2021 alone, the report finds, the world's biggest private-sector banks financed oil and gas to the tune of $742 billion. That year, the 60 banks featured in the new analysis poured $185.5 billion into the 100 companies doing the most to expand the fossil-fuel sector worldwide through offshore drilling, fracking, coal mining, liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and more</b>. Authored by Oil Change International, the Rainforest Action Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups and endorsed by hundreds of organizations from around the world, the report published Wednesday spotlights the marked contrast between banks' public commitments to net-zero emissions targets and their actions, which reflect a continued stake in fossil fuel development.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The worst offenders in the banking industry, according to the report, are the U.S. financial behemoths <b>JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, </b>which together accounted for 25% of all fossil fuel financing identified over the past six years.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report highlights a number of specific projects, including the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/03/federal-court-deals-blow-noxious-fracked-gas-mountain-valley-pipeline" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Mountain Valley Pipeline</a> (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America), drilling in offshore Guyana (funded by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America), and the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/line-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Line 3 Pipeline</a> (funded by TD, Scotiabank, and the Bank of Montreal), efforts that have drawn fierce resistance from Indigenous communities.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Indigenous peoples have long been leading the fight for the sacredness of the land, water, and Earth," Mea Johnson, divestment campaign coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement Wednesday. "Mother Earth has always given us what we need to thrive. We will not back down until our natural balance is restored and anyone helping fund the extractive destruction of our communities will be held accountable."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alison Kirsch, research and policy manager at the Rainforest Action Network, added that "any further expansion of fossil fuels risks locking humanity into generations of climate catastrophe, yet the top fossil clients of the world's largest banks are still being showered with tens of billions of dollars even as they actively expand drilling, mining, fracking, and other fossil fuel development unabated."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"With Wall Street banks leading the charge," Kirsch added, "these financial institutions are directly complicit in undermining a climate-stable future for us all and must immediately end their support of any further fossil fuel infrastructure expansion."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The banks' financing decisions fly in the face of their own <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2021/02/11/bank-america-sets-net-zero-emissions-target-without-key-details-get-there" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box;">pledges</a> to bring their policies into line with critical climate goals, such as achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a benchmark that 44 of the 60 banks profiled in the new report have backed.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
"But global banks have massively supported the companies doing the most to open new oil and gas fields," notes the new report. "Banks with net-zero commitments last year... financed the top 20 upstream oil and gas expansion companies, potentially helping to lock the planet into decades of climate-warming emissions." <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">According to</a> the International Energy Agency, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 would mean ensuring "no new oil and gas fields."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adele Shraiman, a representative for the<b> Sierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign,</b> said Wednesday that the analysis "makes it clear that banks must clean up their act and stop funding the expansion of dirty fossil fuel projects like fracked gas exports, tar sands pipelines, and offshore drilling in order to align with what the science demands and what their own commitments require."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Despite their splashy climate pledges, big banks have largely continued with business-as-usual and actually increased their overall fossil fuel financing since the Paris Agreement," said Shraiman. "As we look ahead to shareholder season, we'll be keeping up the pressure on the banks and their investors to take these critical reforms seriously and stop bankrolling the fossil fuel industry's reckless expansion plans."</font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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