Upon reading about the ‘ House Resolution 1 Amendment’, pushing for the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline upon us by U.S.Representative Carol Miller, I was most struck by her very poor opinion of the Federal Administration’s efforts to address Climate Change and her dismissal of the policy statement made by the White House Office of Management and Budget “This administration is making unprecedented progress in protecting America’s energy security and reducing energy costs for Americans – in their homes and at the pump. H.R. 1 would do just the opposite, replacing pro-consumer policies with a thinly veiled license to pollute… Instead of protecting American consumers, it would pad oil and gas company profits-already at record levels- and undercut our public health and environment.” (Register Herald, March 28, 2023). U.S. Rep. Miller accuses the Fourth Circuit Court of being a left-wing, radical court and she attempts to create factions by debasing the validity of said court’s decision, intent and jurisdiction.” My amendment…implements a necessary check on the liberal court who wants to stop energy production.” (H.R. 1) “seeks to increase domestic production, reform the permitting process, reverse Biden’s (clean energy) anti-energy agenda, streamline energy exports and boost production and processing of domestic critical minerals.” Early on in the newspaper article Rep. Miller is quoted as saying “All gas from the Mountain Valley Pipeline will supply domestic energy markets…” President Biden vows to veto her version of the bill, a veto that I will applaud and support.
In 2014, when Equitrans Midstream, Next Era Energy was holding public meetings, inviting local citizens to see where the Mountain Valley Pipeline proposed route would be in proximity to our homes and farms, also to find out who would sell their property to the mega-corporation for the MVP project, then we were told that the high pressure in the pipe would make it a natural gas transportation and storage 42″ 330 mile pipeline that, due to the pressure, could not give access for providing gas to local communities. Where the planned MVP route included crossing private property that the owners refused to sell to Equitrans Midstream, the corporation hired lawyers to intimidate and sue local citizens, then used Eminent Domain to obtain a right of way from those who stood their ground. There were many squelched protests and local citizens arrested for laying their bodies in the path of the corporate machinery to protest this very unpopular debacle of a project. For 932 days, trees on the Appalachian Trail in the path of the MVP were occupied by protesters on Peters Mountain, one of, if not the most pristine water table in the world, to protect our life supporting habitat from the pollution and devastation of the proposed project, until the Trinity Co. ( company workers from Texas) cut the trees out from under these brave young citizens and arrested them on Trumped-up charges. What is it all for? Energy security? The City Empires of the Earths corporate culture’s unlimited greed for more, more, more electricity in an attempt to depend on this environmentally unsustainable fossil fuel technology? Regardless of the claims that the project is almost completed or less than 55% completed, the pipe that remains to be put in place is on the steepest slopes where steam shovels and bulldozers rolled over and down onto the private property of organic farmers and other citizens. Most of the gas pipeline explosions and oil pipeline leaks occur when the weight of the dirt and rock from surface erosion settles on the pipe and breaks the weldh. Our mountains are not at all conducive to these enormous pipeline projects and the snart money would quit now and put the already laid pipe to a better use, possibly the utilities trunk line for residential mountain estates would better serve our living communities. Since the U.S.Supreme Court passed “Citizens United” of 2010, giving corporations a “voice” in our USA political campaigns by throwing as much money as they want to the candidate of corporate choice, we now find that the United States of America has the best government that big corporate money can buy. “Of the 535 members of the US Senate and House, the #1 recipient of oil and gas campaign cash is West Virginia’s Joe Marchin Among his largest donors is Next Era, the lead operative pushing the Moutain Valley Pipeline.” (Hightower/Lowdown Oct/Nov. 2022) This year the WV State stature has a punean Super Majority of 31 R Senators to 3 Democrat. In the beginning of the 2023 West Virginia State Legiate Session, realieing they had an 80% majority, the WV Senate acted in case of urgency and s 23 B into linw, hours before they were even posted and with no committee or public review. Furthermore, at the end of the session on March 10, 2023, minutes before the Legislative Session elided, many bills were pushed through into law as the proper procedures outlined in the W.V. State Constitution were tossed aside, for whose urgency? When WV. Senator Robert Karnes (R-Randolph Co.) voiced his protest of the proceedings he was removed by the Sergent at Arms for being disruptive. Rep. Carol Miller calls the Fourth Circuit Court “radical”, so while we are defining terms by personally judging actions to make accusations, let us take a quick look at the U.S. Supreme Court, a supposedly unbiased judiciary, that currently has 6 Judges who are actively involved with the Federalist Society (FedSoc), (Hightower/Lowdown May. 2022). The news is just full of stories about, for instance, First Energy being sued by the State of Ohio, WV Governor Jim Justice’s private corporation being sued by an overseas corporation for not delivering coal as contracted. Is this what is meant by “energy security”? I took my energy security leto my own hands and had Mountaineer Gas shut off my service after 2 rate hikes and now an added on ‘pipeline fee’. Rep. Miller’s last words in the Register Herald article are “When we produce energy here, domestic energy costs get lowered and the ability to export energy to our allies increases. Yes, the MVP will streamline our energy exports but not having the pipeline in place has not stopped the “production and processing of domestic critical minerals” at all. When I see the three-mile-long trains of coal cars and natural gas tank cars going through my 150-year-old railroad city, many times a day and on through the night, I see that West Virginia is another natural resources sacrifice state. When the frackers approached us to sell them our family farm in Oklahoma, we thought that our cousins would want to stay so we didn’t make the deal until after our mother died, then we found out that the area was now nothing but sinkholes and earthquakes. Our family was very happy to get out of there and the fossil fuel corporations were most obliging in making the legal arrangements to buy the land from us. I feel very blessed to have spent the last 44 years of my life in Summers County, WV. I plan to stand up to protect and preserve our naturally regenerating, life-supporting habitats for as long as there is breath in my body.
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