An East Coast pipeline project is keeping the Biden administration stuck in a political battle that pits U.S. fossil fuel demand against the fight to curb climate change. The Interior Department authorized the $6.6 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline’s crossing through a national forest, giving another boost to the 303-mile project that would carry natural gas through West Virginia and Virginia to mid-Atlantic and Southeastern markets, write Carlos Anchondo and Niina H. Farah. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stressed the pipeline’s importance at POLITICO’s energy summit Thursday. She said the U.S. is tethered to gas and other fossil fuels until the nation builds out more wind and solar power, battery technology and other carbon-free energy sources. “We know that there’s a real desire to have energy security in areas where there is huge demand for power,” Granholm said. “We also know that we have got to accelerate investment in clean.” Environmental advocates say the administration can’t have it both ways. Granholm’s remarks were interrupted by protesters from the group Climate Defiance who shouted chants such as “No MVP, no LNG, Granholm you are killing me.” “I really don’t want to see the Mountain Valley pipeline go through my home state,” Rylee Haught, an activist who participated in the protest, told Brian Dabbs, David Iaconangelo and Peter Behr. “We’ve already been treated like a sacrifice zone for … gosh, I wanted to say decades, but at least a century. We’re fed up and tired of it,” Haught said. The gas-burning enabled by the pipeline, which would cross hundreds of bodies of water and private land parcels, would release roughly 40 million metric tons of planet-warming pollution per year — the equivalent of more than 10 coal plants’ annual emissions. President Joe Biden has pledged to zero out net carbon pollution from the power sector by 2035. The administration’s backing of the pipeline came after Sen. Joe Manchin stalled the confirmation process for a Biden nominee. That led some lawmakers to speculate that the administration’s support was an attempt to appease the West Virginia Democrat. Granholm’s support for the pipeline doesn’t appear to be persuading Manchin, who has continued to derail Biden nominees and threaten to vote to repeal the president’s landmark climate law.
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