FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 6, 2020
CONTACT:
Lorne Stockman, lorne [at] priceofoil.org
Collin Rees, collin [at] priceofoil.org
Oil Change International Response to Atlantic Coast Pipeline Cancellation
Yesterday, Duke Energy and Dominion Energy announced the cancellation of the long-delayed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) fracked gas project. In response, Lorne Stockman, Senior Research Analyst at Oil Change International, released the following statement:
“After six years of pushing a poorly conceived and unjust gas pipeline project on the people of West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, Dominion and Duke finally threw in the towel. This victory is a testament to the hard work and determination of communities and organizations across the three states who fought their states’ most powerful entities from Day One.
“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline was conceived to funnel ratepayer money to Dominion’s and Duke’s shareholders.[1] Far from cleaning up energy supply in the Southeast, ACP would have made it dirtier.[2] The project threatened to entrench environmental racism by siting a giant compressor station in the heart of a rural, historically Black community in Virginia and plowing through Indigenous communities in North Carolina. It threatened to remove mountaintops, destroy forests, and pollute waterways across Appalachia and beyond.
“ACP’s cancellation is the exception that proves the rule. The hard work of legal advocates overturned ACP’s federal permits in the courts time and again, proving they were granted illegally. The truth is that fossil fuel companies have worked with federal agencies to permit dozens of projects across the U.S. by ignoring and circumventing laws that protect communities and natural resources and placing corporate profits above all else.
“The Southeast can replace its coal power with clean renewable energy. Gas is not — and never was — the solution. The battle continues to defeat the equally unjust fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline and set the Southeast on a course to clean, reliable energy that does not burden its communities with dangerous, dirty, and expensive gas infrastructure.”
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Notes:
[1] “The Art of the Self Deal,” Oil Change International, https://priceofoil.org/2017/09/19/how-gas-pipelines-fleece-ratepayers/
[2] “The Atlantic Coast Pipeline: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Briefing,” Oil Change International, https://priceofoil.org/2017/02/15/atlantic-coast-pipeline-greenhouse-gas-emissions-briefing/