Call it the Keystone next door.

A core group of Virginia Republicans and other landowners is leading the charge against a proposed natural gas pipeline near their backyards and using tactics similar to the environmental crusade against the Keystone XL oil pipeline — the very project Republicans in Congress have elevated into a matter of national economic survival.


Financial services super-lobbyist Phil Anderson is joining other politically active Republicans in carrying out a well-funded campaign against Dominion’s $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would cross Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley while running 550 miles from West Virginia’s fracking fields to North Carolina. They’re calling the effort “All Pain, No Gain,” which echoes the “All Risk, No Reward” coalition that Keystone opponents formed two years ago.

“Job One is to stop this route — it would be a tragedy for the state of Virginia,” said Anderson, whose family has owned land for more than a century along Atlantic Coast’s proposed path 20 miles west of Charlottesville. His allies include other landowners in the area, as well as Tom Harvey, a national security staffer in the George H.W. Bush administration; and Taylor Keeney, a former spokeswoman for Republican ex-Gov. Bob McDonnell.

The pipeline opponents say their fight is neither Republican nor Democratic, and Anderson said his campaign against Atlantic Coast is “not mutually exclusive” with the overwhelming GOP support for Keystone. He notes that Dominion could use condemnation to acquire access to private property for the project if it can’t work out agreements with the owners.

“A lot of conservatives oppose this pipeline — eminent domain for a pipeline that’s not providing any true public utility,” Anderson said. He added: “The XL debate obviously has raised talking points about pipelines to a higher level, but in many ways they are not germane to this issue in Virginia. It’s a different type of pipeline, a different sort of need.”

Still, Atlantic Coast’s opponents acknowledge the parallels with the anti-Keystone push that has pitted President Barack Obama against a chorus of GOP lawmakers in Washington. The dispute is also a reminder of how Keystone has changed the politics of pipelines nationwide, offering a template that activists from New England to Minnesota and Wisconsin are using to grind projects to a halt.

“In some ways, I think we’re not too far from the crowd of folks who say, ‘No pipelines, nowhere,’” said campaign co-Chairwoman Charlotte Rea, an Air Force veteran and self-described independent. “We have a lot of common ground with those folks, more common ground probably than we do differences.”

The activists leading the fight against the Alberta-to-Texas Keystone XL project say: Welcome aboard, Virginians.

“Any effort to slow the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure is a blow for climate sanity at this point,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of the group 350.org.

“I am happy to see Republicans got their backbone back after selling out landowners along the Keystone XL route for the very same risks and concerns about property rights and water,” said Nebraska anti-Keystone activist Jane Kleeb. She added, “If the K Street lobbyists want to learn how to run a grass-roots campaign to protect property rights and water, they can come visit us in Nebraska.”

Anderson, whose firm Navigators Global has represented big-name clients such as AIG and AT&T, said his main concern is blocking Atlantic Coast’s current route — not necessarily “nuances of opinion about subsequent routes [or] having no pipelines at all.” He complained that Dominion “consulted with no one” before choosing the path.

He also contends that Virginians have no guarantee that they would benefit from either the fuel the pipeline would carry or the jobs it would create, saying that “there is very little gain for the citizens of Virginia from this pipeline.” That’s pretty much Obama’s slam on Keystone, which he has said would be “very good for Canadian oil companies” but not even “a nominal benefit to U.S. consumers.”

Atlantic Coast’s foes are aiming their political pressure at Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, all of them Democrats, and have been running television and radio ads in the Virginia heartland urging people to contact the senators. Anderson said the campaign aims to grab the politicians “by the shoulders and say, ‘Let’s have a conversation about how this thing should go.’”

Fundraising for the All Pain, No Gain campaign is halfway to organizers’ $1 million goal, Anderson said. The Global Environment & Technology Foundation, an Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit that Harvey chairs, is the vehicle for donations to the campaign.

Although McAuliffe was among Atlantic Coast’s earliest backers, activists still hope to persuade him to shrug off what Anderson quipped is Dominion’s “letter jacket.” McAuliffe spokesman Brian McCoy seemed to offer little hope for a change of heart, underscoring McAuliffe’s support in a statement that said the governor “has no role in the planning of the project” but “has urged the companies involved to proceed with as much deference to the concerns of landowners and local communities as possible.”

But McAuliffe, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, suggested new caveats for the pipeline on Thursday in an interview with Richmond radio station WRVA. McAuliffe told a caller that the state should “pick the best route that doesn’t affect the homeowners. I want a route that doesn’t affect our pristine environmental areas.”

Warner and Kaine have steered clear of any firm stance on the project, though both have spent weeks urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to extend its initial public comment period before starting an environmental review.

Kaine and his aides have met with landowners and environmentalists about Atlantic Coast, and the senator “believes their concerns are worthy of careful consideration,” a spokeswoman said. Warner remains “committed to listening to the concerns of constituents, taking into consideration the environmental impacts, and carefully monitoring the final pipeline route to ensure it is in the best interest of the state,” spokeswoman Rachel Cohen wrote in an email.

The campaign has stirred a battle royal with Dominion, the state’s dominant electricity supplier. Dominion is a 45 percent partner in the Atlantic Coast project, along with Duke Energy, Piedmont and the Atlanta-based energy services company AGL. Dominion began its own ad campaign in support of Atlantic Coast even before All Pain, No Gain’s ads started. It has also prepared a “Myth vs. Fact” sheet that seeks to counter the opponents’ arguments, including their contentions that the pipeline would be used export fuel as well as criticisms of gas as bad for the climate.

Dominion wants “to find the route with the least impact to the environment, to historical and cultural resources, and that’s what we believe we’re doing through conversations with landowners,” spokesman Jim Norvelle said. He added that the green movement “also wants to close coal-fired power stations,” which makes Atlantic Coast’s gas important for power companies that “still have a responsibility to keep the lights on.”

Norvelle acknowledged that fewer landowners in Rea’s home of Nelson County have given Dominion access to their land than in any of the other Virginia counties where surveying for the pipeline is underway — although he added that they seem willing to “bring reporters on their property.”

All Pain, No Gain co-Chairwoman Nancy Sorrells countered that Dominion would be unable to find any “alternate responsible routes” for the pipeline through Augusta County, where she lives, or in Rea’s county. “Our economy is too dependent on things that would be harmed,” she said.

Sorrells, who like Rea is an independent, said the group wants Dominion and its partners to show a demonstrated need to ship 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas through their state every day. (Atlantic Coast’s annual capacity is more gas than Virginia consumed last year, according to the Energy Department.) It also has significant questions about the safety of building a 42-inch pipeline across Nelson and Augusta counties, which depend on agriculture and tourism.

Meanwhile, Republicans in neighboring states are pressing FERC to sign off on the project. West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito recently urged the agency “to proceed without further delay” on the review, while North Carolina Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr called for “a robust and transparent public process” in a letter that hails the economic benefits of Atlantic Coast.

Those benefits would include $377 million in lower annual energy bills for Virginia and North Carolina customers, according to a Dominion-commissioned study released earlier this year.

Glen Besa, director of the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter, said his group’s activists and the new crew of plugged-in Atlantic Coast opponents have indeed found an agenda they can share. They’re “all pushing to minimize the impact of any pipeline that’s built, and from our perspective stop any pipeline from being built,” he said.

“In one sense,” Besa added, “there’s a common enemy: Dominion Virginia Power.”