Mountain Valley Pipeline Extension and the Midterms Changing Tides
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, the podcast you now love twice as much as you used to.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, more brain food, smaller bites.
Michael Pope
Yeah, we're hitting you up in your inbox twice a week. Now, that's assuming you have hit the subscribe button. So if you haven't already done that, do that right now. So yeah, Thomas, twice as much pod Virginia. And I guess people like us twice as much now, right?
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, well, if you do like it twice as much, leave a five star review because it really helps people find the show.
Michael Pope
Alright, let's get to the news. The FERC is fracking the habitat that would be the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is now giving the mountain valley pipeline four more years to obtain all the necessary permits to complete that long delayed pipeline to carry fracked natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia.
Thomas Bowman
We mentioned this in an episode a few weeks ago, and now we've got an update. Federal regulators now say they're going to overlook the deadline they said two years ago and push it back till 2026.
Michael Pope
This is not the first time the FERC has granted an extension to the mountain valley pipeline back in 2020. Federal regulators gave developers an extra two years to get all the necessary permits. Now they're given another extension this time for more years. David sly at Wild Virginia says federal regulators are ignoring environmental damage that's already happened with this pipeline...
David Sly
We found well more than 600 instances where sediment was deposited off of MVPs right away, which means that it was essentially imposed on adjacent landowners. And in more than 100 of those cases, that sediment was deposited in our waters
Thomas Bowman
Tim Cywinski at the Sierra Club says federal regulators are shirking their duty.
Tim Cywinski
And this really is unprecedented. FERC has never given two extensions to something like this, especially when the mountain valley pipeline has failed to secure four different key permits that are required to complete construction. It's a bad deal for investors, and it's a bad deal for Virginians. We don't need the mountain valley pipeline.
Michael Pope
You know, Thomas, this is an era that we're talking about wind power, we're talking about solar power. And yet somehow we found ourselves in this position, where we're talking about fracked natural gas coming from West Virginia into Virginia. It just seems weird, like why are we even talking about another pipeline, but this is kind of where we are?
Thomas Bowman
Well, Michael, this is the price of getting Joe Manchin's vote. It's what he wanted the most. And doing this deal. If you think about it, if you zoom out, and you think about this deal as more than just the pipeline itself, has given Joe Biden and Democrats and a lot of the American people win after win after win. And so there are as we mentioned, in a previous episode, a ton of exit ramps still to come and a lot unknown.
Michael Pope
You know, you say was the price of getting Manchin's vote, which may be the case, this actually may have may have been how the dealmaking worked in Washington. But that does not mean that does not mean that there will be future legislation changing how the permitting works, it does not mean that the venue of the court challenges will move from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to the DC courts. I mean, like the whole thing about all this expectation of what might happen with the permitting process on the mountain valley pipeline is really murky, like we it's possible that mentioned might have kind of deal with the leadership, but that does not mean the rank and file Democrat rats are going to support this and vote for it. So like, the the, that's not a done deal, but the permitting is going to change and there are these existing permits they don't have. And it's really unlikely that they would get them unless there are some changes. So like we I mean, they got mentions vote so that that part is, you know, a, okay, put that into the done bin. But what's in the undone bin are any changes to the permitting process? So like, it's that's still on the horizon? It might not happen.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, there's more than one way that this can go, Michael. And there's a lot of potential opportunities for speculation here. You mentioned, of course, all the court challenges maybe not going the way that Joe Manchin and the mountain valley pipeline, group wanted it to go. It's also possible, though, that the federal government could come in and eminent domain everything and say, Nope, this has to get built, they can lean on FERC. FERC, has already provided approvals that you need some extensions, and they need some more permitting. But outside of that, the federal government might say there's a compelling state interest for whatever reason. You know, important to note who's building this pipeline, this is actually a unionized job. So this is one of the most lucrative jobs where the lowest paid people are getting over $30 an hour. So there's also a ton of local hire requirements built onto this. So it isn't a bad deal for everybody. That's really important to know, it definitely sucks if you are having your land messed up and the environment around you is damaged from the construction of this pipeline, or a potential leak one day because it is fracked natural gas and fracked. Natural gas, as we know, is extra bad on the environment.
Michael Pope
You mentioned eminent domain. That is one way the federal government could could sort of remove the court challenges. Another way is in any potential future legislation that you chain that you have changing the permitting process, that you require all challenges about this kind of thing to happen in this court mean. So there are multiple ways that could change the legal venue. But again, that's murky, because none of that stuff has happened yet, and like you don't count the votes until you've got them. And I would imagine, there are a lot of votes that would not be there for that kind of thing. So it's one of those things we'll have to follow and see what happens.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, four years is a long time as far as policymaking and government go. But let's move on to our next topic, Michael.
Michael Pope
How optimistic do you feel about the economy? According to a new survey, from Roanoke College, people are feeling pretty good.
Alice Cassins
We had a big rebound and consumer sentiment.
Michael Pope
That's Alice Cassens, at the Institute for Policy and opinion research at Roanoke College.
Alice Cassins
People are feeling much more optimistic today than they were just a few months ago.
Thomas Bowman
According to the survey, there's been an eight point rebound since the spring.
Alice Cassins
That's the biggest gain we've had since February 2018. And certainly we were humming along with a very strong economy while you have the pandemic.
Thomas Bowman
And it's the falling price of gas. That might be the reason consumer sentiment is improving.
Alice Cassins
We've seen a significant drop about a 60 cent drop in a gallon of gasoline in the last four weeks. So I think that's the primary driving piece.
Michael Pope
This is really interesting. Consumer Sentiment is turning around gas prices are falling. I mean, it's hard not to immediately take a knee jerk political view. On all of this, Thomas, which is, you know, a few months ago, everyone was saying the Democrats are really in trouble. Biden is really in trouble. The economy is in a ditch, the gas prices are going to be the undoing of the Biden and the Democrats. And now things are turning around as you as you mentioned, in a previous context, you know, Biden has all these legislative victories. And now add on top of that, the price of gasoline is falling while consumer sentiment is rising. I mean, those are all pretty good signs for Democrats heading into an election cycle that, you know, normally the headwinds would be against them.
Thomas Bowman
It also goes to show just how quickly narratives can change. It's not just the falling price of gas that has people feeling better, Michael, it's things like inflation is coming in a lot lower than it had been the last six months, it seems like Powell and the Fed may have gotten control of it, or they're on track to be getting control of it. Either way, people generally think that our economy is headed back in the right direction. There's still a lot to come though, as far as what could happen ahead of the midterms. And that's what I mean, look how quickly consumer sentiment one way or the other can shift that also does or in a way that also shifts narratives. It could happen the other direction too.
Michael Pope
Yeah, it's also important to point out out that while consumer sentiment has increased rather dramatically in a very short period of time here recently, it's still overall at a really low place like this. I mean, like even where we are now, which has gone up rather dramatically. That's still a historic low, you know, not the lowest point historically. But, you know, close to it. I think it's like the second lowest point. And so, you know, people are focused on the change here, the news, which is the increase, if you step back and look at the bigger picture here, though, it's still low. So I mean, this is, I mean, this might actually be very good for Democrats heading into the fall, it's certainly better than it would be otherwise. But it's, you still have to put it in context here, which is it's still pretty low.
Thomas Bowman
You're right, Michael, it is still pretty low relative to the past. And this also is a great segue into our next topic.
Michael Pope
Republicans reframe the American dream, Republican candidates in some of Virginia's most competitive races, this year, we'll be able to hit the campaign trail this fall and talk about the American dream,
Thomas Bowman
You know the American dream, and you probably have mixed feelings about it. But it's the old 1950s 1960s house with the white picket fence 2.5 Kids minivan in the garage, or at least, that's what it was sold to as some.
Michael Pope
Now it's becoming an issue on the campaign trail. And some of these most competitive races that we're looking at the Republican candidate that will be going up against Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger is Yesli Vega, whose parents immigrated from El Salvador. And the Republican candidate to face Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton. Is Hung Cao, an immigrant from Vietnam. So does that mean that Republicans have flipped the script here on in terms of the immigrant story? Here's what Democratic strategist Ben Tribbett has to say,
Michael Pope
Yes, they are immigrants. But they're telling a story of immigration from our right wing perspective. They're very much running as close the door behind us type of candidates, which is what's so appealing to the Republican base.
Michael Pope
This is really appealing to the Republican base, and you find Republican voters here, you know, where I live in the eighth congressional district, the Republican candidate Karina Lippman is from Ukraine. And I think that probably helped her you know, in the primary, you got Hung Cao is an immigrant from Vietnam as a as a, you know, in terms of him being a candidate snagging the nomination, and that probably helped him too, right. So like, this actually does resonate with Republicans.
Thomas Bowman
The trend you're commenting on, Michael is a term within political science called descriptive representation. That's the belief that black people should be represented by a black representative. Hispanic people should be represented by a Hispanic representative. And so the beliefs if you emphasize descriptive representation, the beliefs themselves matter less than the person on the ballot. Now, there's a huge debate as to whether or not that's actually the case. And Republicans have been pushing more descriptive representative candidates that are not substantively representative candidates. The real question, though, Michael, is can they actually flip the script on the American dream? And here's what I'll say to that... The short answer, yes, they possibly can because the American dream was always a sales job. And it was always a lie. And it was never true if you weren't middle class and white.
Michael Pope
Well, one Republican who is an immigrant is David Ramadan friend of the show. He's a former Republican member of the House of Delegates now professor at George Mason University's Schaar school. And he says Yesli Vega and Hung Cao they would have more success, if they actually represented the political beliefs of their communities.
David Ramadan
If they were not taking the hard core position of anti immigration in America, if they were not taking the hardcore position of closing the borders, both of those candidates have taken those hardcore positions, and those are going to hurt them, regardless of being of a certain minority.
Michael Pope
I'm not sure that's going to hurt them so much. I mean, I think what Ramadan is getting at is that they're not representing the values of their community. But from the candidates perspective, they will get all the votes of the people who agree with that policy position, and they may also pick up some votes from their community. So from the Republican perspective, it's a win win, right? You get the person that agrees with the Republican view on the policy issue. Plus Hung Cao might pick up some votes in the Vietnamese community. Karina Lippsman might pick up some votes in the Ukraine community. So, you know, like, from their perspective, it's, uh, it's really good to have these candidates on the campaign trail talking about the American dream.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And there's also macro factors in play here, Michael, because having candidates from these communities, regardless of what their actual policy positions are, mean that those candidates are going to know how to talk to those communities, and they're gonna have networks within those communities. And I think about the Democratic Party, who likes to represent itself and portray itself as the party of immigrants. Well, how many Democrats? Let's talk about Virginia here, how many Democrats elected to office in Virginia at any level of government actually speak Spanish? Not very many. And so you do have some, and you do have some Hispanic representation generally. But the vast majority of the people asking for these communities to vote for them have no innate ability to communicate in ways that that community values. There's another thing here, Michael, is that a lot of these people are fleeing repressive regimes. So I think about, for example, the Cuban community. Well, both parties needed to be really hard on Cuba, because the people who had fled here had, of course, really negative memories about the Cuban regime or a lot of immigrant Chinese families escaping the Maoist regime and later on and in China's history. Same with Vietnam. In this is a story that continues and continues Guatemala. They're escaping Civil War, right. So if you are too friendly, from the perception of these people to their home countries, then it is sometimes interpreted as condoning the actions of the regime over there. But let's head over the watercooler Michael.
Michael Pope
Yeah. Let's head over to the watercooler. So we got some feedback on our discussion last week about conversion therapy, right, Thomas?
Thomas Bowman
we've got a quick correction here. Michael, we heard from the state senator who carried the companion bill in the Senate and none of us mentioned it. State Senator Scott Surovell, who listens to this show regularly, noticed that we left him out of the conversation and we're sorry for that, Scott. He also had a quick fact check. So I said, since 1990, homosexuality has not been a sickness. Well, that would have been true if we lived in the UK, Michael, but unfortunately, we move really fast sometimes as we're trying to get these shows out to you. So if you're in the US, like we are, homosexuality was deleted to the disease and 1973, not 1990. So actually, I think that makes it even more of an issue that we've known for even longer, just how harmful things like conversion therapy is.
Michael Pope
Yeah, it's it's interesting that courts in New Jersey and elsewhere have determined that for a professional, you know, licensed professional to engage in conversion therapy, that's malpractice. And so it'd be interesting to see if any lawmaker of serval or anybody else wants to introduce a bill in a forthcoming General Assembly on making it illegal to practice on adults, you know, the bill that survival and hope we're able to get through the General Assembly and get the governor's signature on, only made it illegal for children. So like, it's you, if you practice conversion therapy on a minor, you will lose your license in Virginia, that's the law. It did not do that for adults. So if you practice conversion therapy on an adult, totally legal, totally a Okay. In fact, the news hook here, the reason we were talking about last week is because there was a request for the administration to do that administratively. And the administration said, No, we're not going to do that. Thank you very much. But lawmakers could do that in a forthcoming session, Surovell could introduce that bill.
Thomas Bowman
And Surovell pointed out to us that the Republican argument is that they believe it violates the right to freedom of religion, if you were to prohibit religious practitioners who want to use that therapy as part of religious counseling. But here's the issue. So there's a pretty consistent history of conservatives again, weaponizing religious freedom to inflict harm in a way that was not the original intent. And if that's a conversion therapy, if if they want to have that conversation, in my opinion, have that with the pastor fine. But for the state government, to extend a professional license to religious practitioners of junk science, that is a much bigger violation of the separation of church and state. And to respond to the weaponization of of religious freedom, the Human Rights Campaign and LGBT allies are pushing in Congress something called the Do No Harm Act, which could have a state level bill as well. So the Do No Harm act clarifies the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is intended to protect religious freedom without allowing the infliction of harm on other people, it would amend that bill in order to restore the original intent of the law by specifically exempting areas of law where it's been used to bypass federal protections.
Michael Pope
You know, so lawmakers actually debated this twice, once in 2019, when it was unsuccessful know when Republicans were in power. And then again, in 2020, when Democrats were in power, and Governor Northam ended up signing it. And so the discussion around banning conversion therapy for minors at that time, sort of the opposition about it, the concern about it was among religious leaders. And so you said, Well, what about if a pastor wants to engage in conversion therapy? Well, for the most part, pastors don't have professional licenses to engage in therapy. So that's not a problem, like they can do it as much as they want to the law actually doesn't, doesn't pertain to them at all. And then then they got into this weird sort of hypothetical discussion that said, Well, what if you had a member of the church or a volunteer of the church offering conversion therapy, and they also were a licensed professional. That's where things got a little murky. And the discussion was well, among religious leaders, some religious leaders was that, you know, you shouldn't be in danger of losing your license, if you engage in this, you know, it's in a church setting. And so I think the opposition from that was, what if you're a licensed professional, there are professional standards you should be held to, right. So like, if you're a lawyer, and you offer advice to somebody, even if you don't take money, even if you're not, you know, it's not billable hours, you're just saying sort of what you think should happen. You still can get disciplined for that, right. So like, I think this is sort of what it came down to, that even if you offer a conversion therapy, if you're a licensed professional, even if you're in a church setting, even if you're not taking money for it, then you know, you still probably should be liable here and have disciplinary actions against you, because you have kind of violated professional standards. Right now, that applies only if you violate the professional standards for minors, because the professional standards for offering this junk science to adults is it's A-Okay.
Thomas Bowman
All right. Well, this is a good place to leave it for today. Stay tuned for our next episode that's coming out Thursday, we're gonna examine the seventh Congressional District of Virginia. That's where incumbent Congresswoman Abigail spanberger faces a challenge from Republican Yesli Vega. We've got Dr. Steven Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington to examine that show. And Michael, can I just say I felt particularly on fire that interview.
Michael Pope
Yes, it was a great interview. In fact, we have a small preview, check this out.
Stephen Farnsworth
This is going to be the kind of race that will determine which party controls Congress if the Republicans are going to win a house majority, they're going to have to win back some of the seats that Democrats picked up in the suburbs in 2018. And if the Democrats are going to win, why then they're going to have to hang on to districts like Virginia seven.
Michael Pope
This is one of the hottest races in the country this year. So you'll definitely going to want to make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don't miss this episode when it drops on Thursday.
