A great change is sweeping over America's energy landscape.
Once easy built pipelines vital to the delivery of oil and gas
from wells to refineries across the country are being blocked.
Fears over safety and pollution and an increased awareness
of the risks of climate change have
led to a surge of protests and legal objections
by environmental campaigners, Native American tribes,
and community groups, extending to the heart of the nation's
capital.
Brandon, how are you doing?
Good to see you.
Likewise.
It's also where litigation specialist Brandon Barnes
has followed the plummeting fortunes of pipeline projects
across the US since 2016.
It's a combination of public interest and pressure,
politics, regulatory delays, and litigation.
But they've added up to massive delays and cost overruns.
Many campaigns have proved effective in scuppering
projects altogether.
The largest venture to fall yet was the totemic $9bn,
1,900-kilometre Keystone XL pipeline,
supposed to carry heavy Canadian oil from Alberta to Nebraska,
from where it could be piped onwards to refineries
on the Gulf Coast.
After 12 years of delays the owners finally cancelled
the project in June after President Biden revoked a key
US access permit.
Last year, the $8bn Atlantic Coast Pipeline project,
which would have pumped natural gas from West Virginia
to utilities in North Carolina, was also
abandoned after protracted litigation and delays
sent costs soaring.
Even operational conduits are under threat.
The future of the Dakota Access Pipeline,
which has carried oil south from North Dakota's prolific Bakken
Shale since 2017, hangs on an environmental review
after it narrowly avoided a court-ordered shutdown
last year.
The prospects for a greenfield pipeline in particular,
in most any area in the United States right now, are very dim.
They're just not going to be built.
They're getting attacked from all sorts
of different directions, and there are courts putting them
on hold.
But the oil and gas industry needs pipelines.
Huge deposits of shale oil and gas from North Dakota to Texas
are waiting to be tapped and pumped across the US.
But not here in DC, and well beyond the range
of my friendly city taxicab.
Where are you going?
A few hours west of Richmond.
Ooo, that's far.
Five hours later, around 430km southwest of Washington, DC,
I'm rolling along the verdant foothills
of the majestic Appalachian Mountains in Virginia.
A once quiet backwater of country roads
has become another front line for the anti-pipeline movement.
Jamie, how are you doing?
How are you, sir?
Not too bad, not too bad at all.
Good to meet you.
Welcome to Giles County.
Small farmholder Jammie Hale is one of many residents battling
the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
One section of the 485km pipeline
that's due to funnel natural gas across Virginia and West
Virginia cuts through the local area
and has prompted fierce resistance from many locals.
The local community has really got
involved in this resistance against the Mountain Valley
Pipeline by showing up, getting involved, going to water
board hearings.
Jammie and his neighbours opposing the pipeline claim
the risks of an explosion or groundwater contaminating leak
are simply too high.
So the pipeline comes through your land?
Yes, it... yes, it does.
Georgia Haverty runs several businesses
from her farm and apple orchard, including a restaurant
and wedding venue.
This is tearing up our land and our property,
and our businesses, and our environment, and our water.
Wedding parties that come up here to want to tour,
they look at this and they just say, no, thank you.
I'm sorry, we... you know, we don't know what's going
to happen.
We don't know if it's going to be done.
It looks really ugly.
Not everyone in the community is against the pipeline.
And Mountain Valley is now more than 90 per cent
complete, but long over budget and over schedule.
Supposed to open back in 2018, delays caused by opposition
in the courts and by direct protest action have almost
doubled the projected cost, from $3.5bn to more than $6bn.
And the hit to investors and the reverberations
through the industry at large mean
that this epic pipeline project could well
be the last of its kind.
The company behind the pipeline insists
that safety in construction and operation
is a priority, meeting or exceeding regulations.
With pipelines apparently under siege,
I'm back in Washington, DC, to see how the wider industry sees
the viability of piping oil and gas across a country trying
to shift away from fossil fuels and clean up CO2 emissions.
Frank, how are you doing?
Good to see you.
According to the American Petroleum Institute,
pipelines are vital to sustain the kind of supply that
has slashed the cost of energy for US consumers
and helped wean the country off foreign imports
in the last decade.
As we continue to find solutions that
are low and zero-carbon emission solutions,
we also need that oil and gas today
to be able to deliver affordable and reliable energy for folks.
In the short-term at least, the industry
sees no effective alternative.
Supporters say that ferrying oil and gas by road or rail
is far riskier and will create more emissions.
And the pipelines are still efficient and reliable.
Sure, we're concerned about it, but we
know it's necessary to continue our standard of living.
The opposition to pipelines is not universal.
Analysts say the expansion of existing pipelines
could sustain the industry.
But as activists redouble their anti-pipeline campaigns
and climate change plays an increasing
role in political discourse, new mega-pipeline projects
like Mountain Valley might well be a thing of the past.