Transcontinental to expand East Coast gas pipeline  

WASHINGTON – The Transcontinental Pipeline Company (Williams) is seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expand the largest pipeline project on the East Coast since the controversial Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines. The pipeline expansion will run from Virginia to Alabama, delivering up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of methane gas per day, enough to power five or six new large, combined-cycle power plants. For reference, the failed ACP project would have moved 1.5 billion cubic feet of methane gas daily.        

The expansion will also dramatically escalate the rush by Southern utilities to build new gas plants, locking our region into a generational investment in gas while undermining cleaner and more affordable renewable energy options, hindering grid reliability, and driving up energy costs at a time when many families are already struggling to stay on top of monthly bills.   

In response Southern Environmental Law Center’s Senior Attorney Greg Buppert released the following statement:   

“The gas-fired fever dream gripping the South is completely at odds with the need to decarbonize how we get our energy. Natural gas—methane—isn’t some climate elixir. It’s just another dirty fossil fuel that pollutes communities and heats up the planet.”