Virginia Citizens Consumer Council

10/16/2024

FTC announces final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule making it easier for consumers to end recurring subscriptions and memberships.

Agency acts after receiving more than 16,000 comments from the public. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3UaSJ2o /1

09/24/2024

IJHE Journal Volume 17 (1) 2024 is now available. Enjoy reading 15 new published research articles from Home Economics colleagues around the world:https://www.ifhe.org/fileadmin/user_upload/IJHE-Vol-17-Iss-1-2024.pdf

09/04/2024

I wonder how many times the local benefit has been calculated through the years. The projections are always super high but then the reality is much lower.

While seeking endorsements for its latest pipeline expansion project, Williams Transco has done little to inform residents of Pittsylvania County about the project. Recently the company asked the Pittsylvania County

08/26/2024

The other conclusion one could come to is that PJM needs to get the huge, years long, backlog of renewable energy online asap, ending the foot dragging.

Prices at PJM Interconnection’s 2025/2026 base residual auction (BRA) spiked to $269.92/MW-day for most resources in the wholesale power market, pointing

06/10/2024

Here is what I filed with FERC on the MVP In Service Request:

FERC CP16-10-000, et al.
Comment of Impacted Community Member
10 June 2024

I just saw that MVP filed today asking that you give it permission to put the infrastructure into service by tomorrow. Please tell us that you cannot make that determination so quickly! Please insist on seeing the full results of testing, including the list of problems identified to be fixed and documentation that they have been fixed and tested. Please demand proof that MVP has satisfactorily addressed each of the items required in its PHMSA settlement. Please check and make sure they truly have completed the work and it meets reliability and safety standards. Please do all of this BEFORE giving MVP permission to put the infrastructure into service!

The communities being forced to host this infrastructure are frightened. We do not believe that the MVP has been designed and installed to give us enough expectation of safety. We know that hundreds of flaws were found in testing but we have no proof that they were repaired, retested and verified as safe. We know that one pipe blew out and has been taken to the lab for testing but no cause has been publicly identified. It appears to be a manufacturing error and we wonder if there are other compromised segments of pipe. Construction did not even pause to determine if the problem is bigger than expected

We have also watched as the last segments of pipe have been installed on steep and treacherous Poor Mountain in recent weeks. We have many concerns about whether the pipe was installed with sufficient care to allow it to stay in place when pressure is applied or drenching rain pounds the mountainside. As crews have worked long hours over every day of the week, we are concerned that fatigue might have resulted in critical risk of explosion. Already numbers of workers are down, so they do not have to worry about being caught when something goes wrong.

Further, there remains considerable work to put the ROW into completed status. Once the infrastructure is in service, there will be no leverage to force the company to fully recover the disturbed areas.

The opaque manner in which MVP has operated throughout this project makes us worry about what will happen when this questionably safe infrastructure is put into service. We don’t trust the company to provide us with the information needed to keep ourselves safe.

We did not ask for this infrastructure, will not benefit from it, but we believe we deserve to be heard, more consideration of our concerns and observations, as well as safety. Don’t just trust the company! Be positively sure that you are carefully back checking every MVP report and are positive that this infra-structure is safe to put into service.

I just watched the Bellingham, WA presentation commemorating the 25th anniversary of that community’s horrible experiences on this date. Everyone asserted that things have changed since that occurred and that zero deaths is achievable. I wished I could ask them how what is happening here in Virginia fits with their statements. It is beyond ironic that MVP would select this date to declare their work complete. Don’t just automatically accept the company’s word. It has repeatedly been overly optimistic. Don’t allow this infrastructure to be put into service until everyone is positive that it has been adequately tested and mistakes repaired. Our lives are at stake.

Finally, we wonder if anyone will even bother to read our submissions. Throughout these years it has not appeared that our concerns have even been recognized; they certainly have not been transparently, fairly and reasonably addressed.

05/26/2024

Silence give answers.......

05/16/2024

Best news in a long time!!!! Supreme Court says the CFPB's funding is constitutional! I doubt critics will give up but we can breathe a sigh of relief that this crucial consumer agency is not in imminent danger and consumer laws it oversees stand.

02/26/2024

TOP STORY: As Mountain Valley Pipeline races to completion, construction leaves muddy mess in Virginia waterways

As construction crews rush to complete the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia, advocates are calling on state and federal authorities to stop work on the project, citing evidence that the company again caused erosion that polluted waterways with sediment.

Advocates showed photos of formerly clear springs and creeks that looked like chocolate milk during a recent call organized by Virginia-based group Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR). Kellie Ferguson, the group’s community organizer who lives in Giles County, west of Roanoke, said the company’s construction runoff entered underground aquifer systems and began emerging in nearby waterways.

“It took almost a week for [the company] to address the devastation that they had caused or to even pretend to fix it,” Ferguson said on the call.

The pipeline is a joint venture among Pittsburgh-based Equitrans; NextEra Energy, a Florida company that owns multiple utilities and other energy companies; as well as smaller firms WGL Midstream and RGC Midstream. It will deliver gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia to states along the middle and southern Atlantic Coast by connecting Equitrans’ pipeline network to the Transco pipeline in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The pipeline could transport up to 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Read full story here: https://news.oilandgaswatch.org/post/as-mountain-valley-pipeline-races-to-completion-construction-leaves-muddy-mess-in-virginia-waterways

Virginia Conservation Network, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter, Environmental Defense Fund, Powered by Facts, Protect Our Water Heritage Rights, Preserve Giles County, Wild Virginia, Preserve Montgomery County VA, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, National Parks Conservation Association, Cowpasture River Preservation AssociationNational Parks Conservation Association, Third Act Virginia, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, The Wilderness Society, Loudoun Climate Project, ARTivism Virginia, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 's International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section, 350 Triangle, 7 Directions of Service, Preserve Craig, Inc., West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Preserve Salem

01/09/2024

What the industry doesn't seem to understand is that to do what they want to do they undermine any future plans and attempts to pass heritage property down to future generations. Nothing in our current system makes them respect landowners in ANY way! They automatically get eminent domain authority with certification and start threatening the landowner with it from the first interaction - well before certification. They can do this because they know the system will support them and them only.

Until landowners have a way to stand up for our rights - that does not take hours and years of time and thousands upon thousands of dollars - nothing will change. These companies feel their rights trump all other rights and are increasingly comfortable flexing their power over landowners and taking many unfair actions.

Meanwhile, Congress talks about reducing landowner rights (even though they don't use those words, that's what Manchin's changes are about) to hasten the building process. That just reinforces how little landowners matter and how un-American and unfair the whole thing is. None of them understand the difference between fairly standing up for property rights and NIMBYism. They will do/say anything to get their way.

Federal law and regulation changes are desperately needed.

An E&E News investigation finds farmers and others have little recourse when companies fail to fix damage from pipeline construction. A former regulator

12/05/2023

Excellent piece from John Breyault of the National Consumers League

It has been a year since Taylor Swift’s legions of fans, ecstatic at the artist’s return to the stage, blew up Ticketmaster’s platform. Swifties’ outrage over the debacle quick

07/14/2022

Right to repair

Sometimes good gizmos go bad.

07/13/2022

Washington, D.C. – The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) released an Issue Brief today, calling on the Senate to vote on and pass S. 2992, The American Innovation and Choice Online Act. CFA also urges the House to pass the bill. “This is a vitally important piece of legislation,” said Rache...