A mandate to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) as part of legislation to raise the debt limit didn’t come from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), according to sources on the Hill familiar with the matter.

Pres. Joe Biden and McCarthy reached a deal “in principle” to raise the debt limit over the Memorial Day weekend, with a full vote on the resulting bill expected on the House floor Wednesday.

Sources tell TYT that when the details of the bill emerged over the weekend, House progressives were completely blindsided by the inclusion of the controversial MVP project and provisions stripping some protections of community input on future energy projects.

“The permitting stuff that was in there, you know, was more than we thought it was gonna be,” one source told TYT.

“A number of progressive members were blindsided both by the inclusion of MVP and some of the specific rollbacks” of a federal law protecting community input on both green and fossil-fuel projects, including pipelines, another source told TYT.

It’s unclear if the MVP mandate and rollbacks to that law, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), were a late addition to the debt-limit deal, but both sources said those provisions weren’t pushed by McCarthy.

Last year, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) threw his support behind Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) push for permitting changes and, specifically, for MVP approval in return for Manchin helping to pass Biden’s signature economic, climate, and energy bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

One source suggested that the debt-ceiling bill may have been seen as a chance to make good on the IRA promises made to Manchin. “I think MVP was not a priority for the Republicans and may have been included as a way for the White House to fulfill their IRA deal with Manchin,” the source said. Schumer did not immediately respond to TYT’s request for comment.

“The short of it is that we don’t know how all that happened,” said one source regarding the MVP mandate. “Most of what we were hearing was from reporting […] and, you know, seeing from reporting again, that it wasn't a McCarthy ask – the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

As TYT first reported, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Rep. Raúl Grijalva, along with nearly a third of House Democrats, wrote to Democratic leadership on May 19 urging Biden, Schumer, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) not to attach energy permitting changes to any ostensibly must-pass legislation.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA) have both vowed to oppose the MVP provision with amendments to strike it from the new bill.

And on Tuesday, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that her caucus has “deep concerns” around the “permitting policies and the work requirements on social safety net programs.”

When asked on Sunday if Democratic leadership will still have to worry about the progressive caucus supporting the debt limit bill, Jayapal told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Yes, they have to worry.”

TYT Washington Correspondent Candice Cole was previously a correspondent and senior White House producer for the Black News Channel and has worked at a number of local news outlets. You can find her on Twitter @CandiceColeNews.