Debt limit deal would allow controversial Mountain Valley pipeline's completion to be expedited

Congress may be on its way to avoiding debt default for the nation, but it could come at some environmental cost. Included in the text of the deal is a provision that would approve the remaining permits for the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, thereby "expediting completion" of a project championed by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat.

The permitting provision – which takes up 25 of the bill's 99 pages – identifies the pipeline by name and, noting it would carry natural gas more than 300 miles across the Virginias, it says that the pipeline is "required in the national interest" to "increase the reliability of natural gas supplies and the availability of natural gas at reasonable prices."

But the pipeline, which is nearly complete, has undergone months of battling for its final permits and has a history of environmental concerns. And the fight to expedite its approval may not be over: the debt ceiling bill still must go through Congress, and several members are already unhappy with the inclusion of the pipeline. On Tuesday, six House Democrats filed an amendment to remove it from the bill.