On August 18, 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) extended the permit for the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline project by four years.[1] The $6.6 billion project is being built by a joint venture of Equitrans Midstream, NextEra Energy, Consolidated Edison, AltaGas, and RGC Resources. The pipeline will run 304 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia and deliver 2 billion cubic feet of gas daily to the Southeast. Construction on the project has been slowed by several court decisions rejecting federal permits. When FERC initially approved the pipeline in 2017, it said the project had to be operating by October 2020. However, in August 2020, FERC extended the permit deadline to October 13, 2022. With the most recent extension, the project must be completed by mid-October 2026. In its decision, FERC unanimously ruled that the basis for its findings in its initial 2017 approval remained the same. The commission rejected calls to conduct a supplemental environmental analysis. Equitrans now expects to complete the Mountain Valley project in the second half of 2023. Currently, the project is roughly 94% complete.

[1] https://elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/filelist?accession_number=20220823-3076&optimized=false