A consortium of companies led by energy giant Dominion Resources will spend up to $5 billion to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, which supporters said will initially create 8,800 jobs.
McAuliffe and other supporters of the Virginia pipeline said the infrastructure improvement will prevent spikes in energy bills during severe weather, lure heavy manufacturing to the state and give Virginia what McAuliffe called “direct access to the most affordable natural gas supply in the United States.”
As proposed, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline would bring natural gas to growing markets in Virginia and North Carolina. It would run through more than a dozen counties in Virginia, cutting a rural swath from Highland County in the northwest down through some of the most populous counties of Hampton Roads in the southeast. It would stretch about half the length of the controversial northern leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline expansion, which would run 1,200 miles from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“We’re talking jobs, economic development, and it’s good for the environment,” McAuliffe said, pointing to an image of green trees and grass that he said will cover the pipeline trench once it has been completed. “In addition, this will allow Dominion, who has coal plants that are 50, 60 years old, which they plan on shutting down — this is a lot less emissions. So what we’re doing today is great for the environment. . . . This is a win-win today for everybody.”
McAuliffe’s enthusiastic support for the pipeline comes with a political twist, which is that he won election last year with strong support from a coalition of environmental activists, including Tom Steyer, an anti-Keystone XL mega-donor. But McAuliffe also campaigned on a promise to create jobs and retain Virginia’s reputation as a business-friendly state.
Environmental issues are tricky for Virginia politicians, who must balance public concern about climate change with job losses in the southwest as coal-fired power plants close and the federal government considers more stringent regulations.
Environmental activists accused McAuliffe of hypocrisy for supporting the pipeline after he convened a commission on climate change this summer. Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said the pipeline will encourage more hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and increase methane emissions.
