Virginia’s most powerful company runs ‘campaign to elect a pipeline’

RICHMOND, Virginia: Dominion Energy was taking no chances with the fate of its proposed natural gas pipeline during this year’s election season, even though both major candidates for governor supported the US$ 5 billion project.

The state’s most powerful corporation, along with partner companies and the American Gas Association, poured resources into online groups called EnergySure and Your Energy Virginia to whip up what it called a grassroots “campaign to elect a pipeline.”

Numbers from an industry presentation suggest the scope of the effort: As of early October, Dominion had compiled a “supporter database” of more than 23,000 names, generated 150 letters to the editor, sent more than 9,000 cards and letters to federal regulators and local elected officials, and directed more than 11,000 calls to outgoing Gov Terry McAuliffe and Virginia’s US senators.

Critics say those efforts - outlined in a presentation that was not intended for the public but was briefly visible on the gas association’s web site - amounted to overkill. But the company says the onslaught is the only way to do business at a time when everything is politicised and opponents can use social media to magnify their influence.

“We cannot just sit back and hope for the best and hope that the merit of our project will sell itself,” Bruce McKay, Dominion’s senior energy policy director, said in an interview. He gave the presentation last month at a conference in Arizona. “Nowadays (regulators) are being bombarded by general citizenry, by elected officials who have asked to insert themselves into the process, and this debate swirls around.”

Opponents of the pipeline - and of the separate Mountain Valley Pipeline, backed by a different set of companies - are a fragmented group of environmentalists and landowners from some of the most remote parts of the state. They have gone to great lengths to get attention for their concerns, staging art events, posting videos online and heckling political candidates.

Just this week, a coalition of activists announced plans for a demonstration in Richmond on Dec 2, featuring live music and hundreds of people holding hands around Capitol Square wearing blue ribbons and scarves “to represent our universal connection to water.”

Known for disrupting campaign appearances by Gov- elect Ralph Northam, a Democrat who said he would support the pipelines as long as they withstood strict environmental scrutiny, the anti-pipeline groups have promised to continue hounding the new administration. — WP Bloomberg