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lng export terminals
Climate Week Is Here; Our Governors Are Still Siding with Polluters
Frontline communities are exposing blue state governors that sell themselves as climate leaders while favoring polluters.
Sep 23, 2025
I grew up in New Mexico, where oil rigs appear in every direction and wildfire smoke fills the summer air. For years, I’ve sat through state climate hearings and planning sessions, believing our leaders might finally act with courage. Instead, what I’ve seen is a machine built to protect industry and silence communities.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham sells New Mexico as a climate leader, but her record tells another story. This year alone, her administration advanced industry schemes like the Strategic Water Supply Act, moving forward with rules to recycle toxic fracking waste.
This comes in addition to leaving basic protections like a drilling setback law off the table and welcoming Wall Street giant Blackstone to place a bid to take over PNM, our largest utility in New Mexico—handing over our energy future to corporate profiteers.
This isn’t climate leadership. It’s industry power dressed up as progress—at the expense of our health, water, and future.
So here is our challenge to Governors Lujan Grisham, Shapiro, and Newsom: If you truly oppose Trump’s fossil fuel agenda, prove it.
Pennsylvania and California tell a similar story.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro brands himself as a pragmatic moderate. In reality, he green-lit new gas plants, advanced fossil fuel-powered data centers, and supported liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals—projects that lock in fossil fuel expansion while exposing Pennsylvanians to deadly risks.
Worse, his administration is backing legislation like HB 502 and SB 939 that strip municipalities of the power to reject harmful facilities, in direct violation of Pennsylvania’s constitutional right to clean air and water. Families already sick from fracking are being sacrificed so Shapiro can keep industry happy and court national credibility. That isn’t pragmatism. It’s siding with polluters over people.
Gov. Gavin Newsom positions himself as a global climate champion. But in California, frontline communities experience a different reality. Basic health protections like the oil drilling setback law remain under attack, while projects like the Sable Pipeline continue to threaten communities and ecosystems.
Newsom touts his “climate leadership” on the world stage, yet at home he delays, waters down, or sidesteps measures that would phase out fossil fuels. Recently, Democratic lawmakers—backed by Newsom—passed a “climate” package that extends California’s cap-and-trade system for another 15 years while also permitting new drilling. It’s yet another regulatory giveaway to Big Oil. California is sold as a model of climate action, but the truth is clear: Fossil fuel power still dictates the terms.
The pattern is undeniable: governors who pose as climate leaders while protecting fossil fuel interests. Their playbook is the same—adopt the language; sign onto climate alliances; and then push carbon capture, cap-and-trade systems, produced water, hydrogen, and LNG as “solutions.” These are not solutions. They are lifelines for oil and gas, designed to extend extraction.
This is not accidental. It is a deliberate political strategy—a blue-state echo of US President Donald Trump’s fossil fuel agenda. Yet the result is the same: communities poisoned, democracy sidelined, industry shielded. The message to frontline communities is clear: Our lives are expendable if they threaten the profits of fossil fuel companies.
That’s why this Climate Week in New York City, frontline communities from New Mexico, California, and Pennsylvania are coming together to expose the truth. Behind the speeches and pledges, our governors are siding with polluters. They cannot continue to market themselves as climate champions while advancing the fossil fuel agenda at home.
We know what real climate leadership looks like. A just transition—led by communities and workers, not corporations—can phase out fossil fuels, create union jobs, and protect public health. It means rejecting false solutions. It means putting water, air, and people before industry. It means confronting the political power of fossil fuels head-on.
As the 2026 gubernatorial races approach, young people like me are paying attention. We don’t just want new leaders. We demand leadership that stands up to polluters and delivers a future worth living in.
So here is our challenge to Governors Lujan Grisham, Shapiro, and Newsom: If you truly oppose Trump’s fossil fuel agenda, prove it. Stop greenwashing. Stop silencing frontline communities. Stop pushing industry scams dressed up as climate policy.
Because climate action without justice isn’t action—it is betrayal. And frontline communities are not backing down until we win the future we deserve.
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'A Call to Conscience': Damning Report Shows Every Major US LNG Project Fails Climate Test
"What we found was crystal clear—any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate."
Jul 09, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump ramps up fossil fuel production under his "drill, baby, drill" energy policy, a report published Wednesday highlights the climate and financial harms posed by new liquefied natural gas export projects—all of which fail a "climate test" that the Department of Energy issued during the Biden administration.
The report—published by Greenpeace USA, Earthworks, and Oil Change International—examines five major U.S. LNG projects: Venture Global CP2, Cameron LNG Phase II, Sabine Pass Stage V, Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG Midscale 8-9, and Freeport LNG Expansion.
Instead of giving into Trump’s pressure to import + finance more LNG, leaders must invest in a just transition to renewable energy that will protect our communities from deadly pollution and climate disasters. Learn more: www.greenpeace.org/usa/failing-...
[image or embed]
— Oil Change International (@oilchange.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 6:57 AM
All but one of the projects is awaiting a final investment decision. None passes a "climate test" derived from the Department of Energy's (DOE) December 2024 LNG export public interest studies, as they all would result in a net increase in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regardless of sustainability measures including supply basin switching, LNG terminal methane abatement, and powering liquefaction with renewable electricity.
"Increasing LNG exports from the Gulf Coast would still lead to global GHG emissions increases above the level consistent with the DOE's most stringent climate mitigation scenario," the report states. Data suggests "no realistic mitigation can make U.S. LNG exports aligned with limiting warming to 1.5ºC," the more ambitious goal of the Paris climate agreement. Trump has twice withdrawn the United States from the landmark accord.
"What we found was crystal clear—any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate," Greenpeace USA senior research specialist Andres Chang, the report's lead author, said in a statement.
"The massive growth in infrastructure along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast has already created significant public health and ecosystem impacts, threatening entire coastal communities," Chang added. "But it doesn't stop there. This report shows that if built, these projects would put global climate goals even further out of reach."
"No realistic mitigation can make U.S. LNG exports aligned with limiting warming to 1.5ºC."
The United States is the world's leading natural gas producer and LNG exporter. While the fossil fuel industry often calls LNG a "bridge fuel"—a cleaner alternative to coal that will ease the transition to sustainable energy sources—critics have warned that the fossil gas actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite his own DOE's acknowledgment that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis, former President Joe Biden oversaw what climate campaigners called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects.
Trump—who during his 2024 campaign vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill" as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers—is planning to increase LNG exports even more, in part by invoking his bogus "energy emergency" to fast-track polluting projects.
A report published in January by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration sought to fast-track and found they would create 510 million metric tons of climate pollution—equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants.
Oil Change International noted Wednesday that "future administrations could revoke export authorizations that were rubber-stamped under Trump based on their failure to pass the DOE 'climate test,' which introduces a new layer of uncertainty to these already-risky projects."
The report also underscores that while the DOE climate test "is a major improvement upon previous federal analyses," its methodology "still fails to sufficiently account for emissions from large, accidental releases (such as 'super-emitter' events), equipment malfunction, and malpractice."
"High rates of methane emissions during the ocean transport stage of the LNG supply chain are also not represented," the report adds. "Incorporating measurement-based data and more realistic assumptions would make clearer the immense climate impact of building new liquefied gas infrastructure, especially in the near-term."
The report's authors call on the DOE to invoke the "climate test" to reject pending and future LNG export applications and exercise its authority under the Natural Gas Act "to reevaluate the public interest status of LNG projects that received authorizations without consideration of climate impacts or under analyses that predate the 2024 LNG Study."
The publication also calls on Congress to pass legislation "that makes it a statutory requirement under the Natural Gas Act to assess the climate impact of gas exports and reject applications that would increase global GHG emissions under a credible scenario to limit warming to 1.5ºC."
"Additionally, U.S. federal agencies should require all new proposed fossil fuel production and infrastructure projects to meet a similarly high standard under the National Environmental Policy Act," the report asserts.
"Energy purchasers, financial institutions, and foreign governments should refrain from entering into long-term offtake agreements for U.S. LNG and financing of LNG infrastructure," the authors wrote. "Instead, these parties should prioritize measures that accelerate the renewable energy transition and plan for a managed phase-out of fossil fuels. Group of Seven nations, in particular, should abide by their 2022 commitment to stop financing overseas fossil fuel infrastructure with taxpayer money."
James Hiatt, founder and director of the Lake Charles, Louisiana-based advocacy group For a Better Bayou, said Wednesday that "fossil fuel dependency has long externalized its true costs, forcing communities to bear the burden of pollution, sickness, and economic instability."
"For decades the oil and gas industry has known about the devastating health and climate impacts of its operations, yet it continues to expand, backed by billions in private and public financing," Hiatt continued. "These harms are not isolated—they're systemic, and they threaten all of us."
"This report is a call to conscience," he added. "It's time we stop propping up deadly false solutions and start investing in a transition to energy systems that sustain life, not sacrifice it."
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Gas Export Terminals Are Making Texas and Louisiana Sick: We Must Stop It
Now is the time to make our voices heard before the haze, smog, and soot choke the sky for good and while there is still time remaining for the Biden administration to reject the many LNG export applications in the queue.
Jan 18, 2025
No one likes bad air days. Days when the air smells wrong; the sky is choked with haze, smog, soot; and the weather report has to invent new shades of purple to warn us to stay inside. But what people might not know is that bad air is literally killing us and making us less healthy.
And the build out of liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) export terminals along the Texas and Louisiana coast is making it worse.
A large percentage of U.S. “natural” gas production, which is just fracked methane gas, isn’t used here at home, but now gets shipped directly overseas. The terminals where this gas is turned into a liquid and loaded onto massive tankers emit all sorts of harmful air pollution. These facilities have a permit to pollute, but a recent report shows that just because the government signs off on something doesn’t mean it won’t kill you.
Maybe the most frustrating part of this whole story is that Texas and Louisiana taxpayers are footing the bill for all this suffering.
Seven of the currently operating LNG export terminals are estimated to cause 60 premature deaths every year due to flaring and other emissions. And there are many, many more such terminals in the planning stages looking to become operational within the decade, potentially upping that number to almost 150 premature deaths per year. The “soot” and “smog” that form from the resulting particulate matter and ozone also cause a range of other health problems, including asthma, and lead to people having to miss school and work, and cost us health impacts worth billions of dollars.
These LNG terminals plan to operate for decades to come, and if you add up the health impacts over time it amounts to over 4,000 deaths by 2050. The coastal communities that live in the shadow of these massive facilities face the highest per capita health impacts, but particulate matter and ozone don’t stay confined near their source. They are regional pollutants that can travel hundreds of miles and still cause harm.
As we speak, Harris County, Texas, home to Houston; and Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana are estimated to suffer the most deaths due to LNG terminal air pollution. Dallas County is No. 3, even though it is 250 miles from the nearest LNG terminal.
This report only looks at LNG terminals, but the dirty secret is that many places in Texas and Louisiana are already over-polluted. Oil refineries, petrochemical plants, coal plants, and more are already contributing to air pollution and health harms in the region. This frenzy to export methane gas is only pouring new pollution on top of old.
In Southwest Louisiana, decades of toxic emissions from refineries and petrochemical plants have polluted the air and contaminated the upper Calcasieu River, leading to a seafood advisory, limiting the amount of fish locals can eat. LNG export facilities have expanded this industrial air pollution to communities that had never faced these issues before. Now, residents frequently hear warning alarms and witness massive flares spewing black smoke into the sky. Many in the community report symptoms such as frequent headaches and worsening respiratory problems, clear signs of the harmful impact this pollution is having on their health.
For generations, fishermen in Cameron Parish, Louisiana have depended on the bounty of the estuaries and wetlands, providing for their families and communities. These waters were once an integral part of the local culture and economy, passed down from father to son. After rebuilding through storm after storm, these same families now face a new challenge—being displaced by a multi-billion-dollar industry that not only pollutes their environment but jeopardizes their ability to sustain themselves from it. The risks that coastal communities face like coastal erosion and extreme weather are worsened by the climate crisis, which the LNG industry ironically helps fuel.
Maybe the most frustrating part of this whole story is that Texas and Louisiana taxpayers are footing the bill for all this suffering. Another report from late last year showed how several of these LNG companies have received tax handouts in the billions of dollars, taking money away from needed resources like health and safety services. All this on the promise of good paying jobs to local folks that never materialize. And what’s more, every tanker of LNG that gets shipped overseas raises energy prices here at home.
Talk about a raw deal.
But after nearly a decade of rubber stamping these terminals, the federal government just took a closer look.The U.S. Department of Energy, who authorizes LNG for export, just updated its studies used to determine whether LNG exports actually serve the public interest. The studies conclude that LNG exports raise energy prices, inflame climate change, sabotage the clean energy transition, and cause harm to our local communities.
The incoming presidential administration may try to ignore the evidence. To expect them to choose what’s right for Texas and Louisiana—let’s just say, unfortunately, we won’t be holding our breath.
Now is the time to make our voices heard before the haze, smog, and soot choke the sky for good and while there are still a few days remaining that the Biden administration can reject the many LNG export applications in the queue. We all need to act now to protect the air in Louisiana and Texas, and everyone from the worst of the climate crisis.
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Meet the Banks and Investors Funding the LNG 'Carbon Bomb'
"Banks and investors can still act to put an end to the unrestrained support they offer to the companies responsible for LNG expansion," the authors of a new report said.
Dec 05, 2024
Liquefied natural gas developers have expansion plans that could release 10 additional metric gigatons of climate pollution by 2030, and major banks and investors are enabling them to the tune of nearly $500 billion.
A new report published by Reclaim Finance on Thursday calculates that, between 2021 and 2023, 400 banks put $213 billion toward LNG expansion and 400 investors funded the buildout with $252 billion as of May 2024.
" Oil and gas companies are betting their future on LNG projects, but every single one of their planned projects puts the future of the Paris agreement in danger," Reclaim Finance campaigner Justine Duclos-Gonda said in a statement. "Banks and investors claim to be supporting oil and gas companies in the transition, but instead they are investing billions of dollars in future climate bombs."
"While banks will secure their profits, it's at the expense of frontline communities who often will not be able to get their livelihoods, health, or loved ones back."
The International Energy Agency has concluded since 2022 that no new LNG export developments are required to meet energy demand while limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. Despite this, LNG developers have upped export capacity by 7% and import capacity by 19% in the last two years alone, according to Reclaim Finance. By the end of the decade, they are planning an additional 156 terminals: 93 for imports and 63 for exports.
Those 63 export terminals, if built, could alone release 10 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions—nearly as much as all currently operating coal plants release in a year. What's more, building more LNG infrastructure undermines the green transition.
"Each new LNG project is a stumbling block to the Paris agreement and will lock in long-term dependence on fossil fuels, hampering the shift toward low-carbon economies," the report authors explained.
Many large banks have pledged to reach net-zero emissions, yet they are still financing the LNG boom. U.S. banks are especially responsible, Reclaim Finance found, funding nearly a quarter of the buildout, followed by Japanese banks at around 14%.
The top 10 banks funding LNG expansion are:
- Mitsubishi UFG Financial Group (Japan)
- JP Morgan Chase (U.S.)
- Mizuho (Japan)
- Gazprombank (Russia)
- SMBC Group (Japan)
- Bank of America (U.S.)
- Citigroup (U.S.)
- Goldman Sachs (U.S.)
- Morgan Stanley (U.S.)
- RBC (Canada)
While 26 of the banks on the report's list of top 30 LNG financiers have made 2050 net-zero commitments, none of them have adopted a policy to stop funding LNG projects. None of top 10 banks have any LNG policy at all, despite the fact that Bank of America and Morgan Stanley helped found the Net Zero Banking Alliance. Instead of winding down financing, these banks are winding it up, as LNG funding increased by 25% from 2021 to 2023. In 2023 alone, 1,453 transactions were made between banks and LNG developers.
All of this funding comes despite not only climate risks, but also the local dangers posed by LNG export terminals to frontline communities. Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG, for example, has harmed health through excessive air pollution while dredging and tanker traffic has disturbed ecosystems and the livelihoods of fishers.
"Banks still financing LNG export terminals and companies are focused on short-term profits and cashing in on the situation before global LNG oversupply kicks in. On the demand side, financing LNG import terminals delays the much-needed just transition," said Rieke Butijn, a climate campaigner and researcher at BankTrack. "While banks will secure their profits, it's at the expense of frontline communities who often will not be able to get their livelihoods, health, or loved ones back. People from the U.S. Gulf South to Mozambique and the Philippines are rising up against LNG, and banks need to listen."
The report also looked at major investors in the LNG boom. Here too, the U.S. led the way, contributing 71% of the total backing.
The top 10 LNG investors are:
- BlackRock
- Vanguard
- State Street
- Fidelity Investments
- Capital Group
- GPFG
- JP Morgan Chase
- Brookfield Asset Management
- Blackstone
- MSBI
Just three of these entities—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—contributed 24% of all investments.
Reclaim Finance noted that it is not too late to defuse the LNG carbon bomb.
"Nearly three-quarters of future LNG export and import capacity has yet to be constructed," the report authors wrote. "This means that banks and investors can still act to put an end to the unrestrained support they offer to the companies responsible for LNG expansion."
To this end, Reclaim Finance recommended that banks establish policies to end all financial services to new or expanding LNG facilities and to end corporate financing to companies that develop new LNG export infrastructure. Investors, meanwhile, should set an expectation that any developers in their portfolios stop expansion plans and should not make new investments in companies that continue to develop LNG export facilities. Both banks and investors should make clear to LNG import developers that they must have a plan to transition away from fossil fuels consistent with the 1.5°C goal.
"LNG is a fossil fuel, and new projects have no part to play in a sustainable transition," Duclos-Gonda said. "Banks and investors must take responsibility and stop supporting LNG developers and new terminals immediately."
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'Right Thing to Do': FERC Delays Controversial LNG Export Terminal
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," one frontline advocate said.
Dec 04, 2024
Frontline communities along the Gulf Coast were granted a "temporary reprieve" last week when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved to pause its approval of the controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas export terminal while it conducts an assessment of its impact on air quality.
FERC approved Venture Global's CP2 in late June despite opposition from local residents who say the company's nearly identical Calcasieu Pass terminal has already wracked up a history of air quality violations and disturbed ecosystems and fishing grounds in Louisiana's Cameron Parish, harming health and livelihoods.
"This order reveals that FERC recognizes that CP2 LNG's environmental impacts are too great to pass through any real scrutiny" Megan Gibson, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), said in a statement on Monday.
"FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place."
FERC's decision follows a request for a rehearing of its June decision filed by frontline residents and community groups including For a Better Bayou and Fishermen Involved in Sustaining Our Heritage (FISH) as well as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In their request, the groups and individuals pointed to errors the commission had made in its approval decision.
"With this order, it seems FERC is finally willing to acknowledge that it has not done enough to properly consider the cumulative harm on communities caused by building so many of these LNG export terminals so close together," Nathan Matthews, a Sierra Club senior attorney, said in a statement. "Prohibiting construction of CP2 LNG while FERC takes another look at the environmental impact of this massive, polluting facility is the right thing to do."
"Still," Matthews continued, "FERC must take concrete steps to properly evaluate the true scope of the dangers posed to communities from gas infrastructure moving forward and avoid making unwarranted approvals in the future."
FERC's decision comes over four months after the D.C. Circuit Court remanded the commission's approval of Commonwealth LNG, also in Louisiana, over concerns that it had not fully assessed the impacts of that project's air pollution emissions. Now, frontline advocates are urging FERC to do its due diligence as it weighs the environmental impacts of CP2.
"Through the lenses of optical gas imaging, we've seen massive plumes of toxic emissions, undeniable proof that these projects poison the air we breathe," James Hiatt, director of For a Better Bayou, said of LNG export facilities. "Modeling must use the latest data from the most local sources to fully capture the harm these facilities inflict on Cameron Parish. Anything less is a betrayal of our community. FERC must choose justice over profit and stop sacrificing people for polluters."
Gibson of SELC said that FERC had already repeated some of the errors in its CP2 approval in its new order.
"This continued failure to fulfill its regulatory duty is not just an oversight—it is a failure to protect vulnerable communities and our economy from the real potential harms of this massive export project," Gibson said.
FERC's decision comes as the fate of the LNG buildout itself hangs in the balance. The Biden administration's Department of Energy is currently rushing to complete its renewed assessment of whether or not LNG exports serve the public interest. Environmental and frontline groups have argued that they do not because of local pollution, the fact that they would raise domestic energy bills, and their contribution to the climate emergency. CP2 alone would spew 8,510,099 metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year, which is about the same as adding 1,850,000 new gas cars to the road.
While President-elect Donald Trump has promised to "drill, baby, drill" and is likely to disregard any Biden administration conclusions, a strong outgoing statement against LNG exports would help bolster legal challenges to Trump energy policy.
At the same time, Bill McKibben pointed out in a column on Tuesday that the administration's pause on LNG export approvals while it updates its public interest criteria has acted to slow the industry's expansion, and that FERC's reconsideration of CP2 could add to this delay.
"The vote for the new review is 4-0, and bipartisan," McKibben wrote. "It could slow down approvals for the project till, perhaps, the third quarter of next year. And that's good news, because the rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind, and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow."
Ultimately, frontline Gulf Coast advocates want to see the LNG buildout halted entirely.
"I, along with the fishermen in Cameron, Louisiana, know firsthand how harmful LNG exports are, and see the total disregard they have for human life as they poison our families and seafood," said FISH founder Travis Dardar, an Indigenous fisherman in Cameron, Louisiana. "FERC's pause on construction may give us some temporary reprieve, but this project never should have been authorized in the first place. As far as anyone who believes in the fairytale of LNG being cleaner, we have paid with our communities and livelihoods. It's time to break these chains and turn away from this false solution."
Roisheta Ozaine, a prominent anti-LNG activist and founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said that she, as a mother in an environmental justice community, saw "firsthand how LNG facilities prioritize profit over the well-being of our families. Commonwealth and CP2 are no different."
"We are happy about the delay, but these projects don't ever need to be approved and neither does any other LNG facility," Ozane continued. "My children are suffering from health conditions that threaten their daily lives, all while regulatory agencies and elected officials turn a blind eye. It's time for our leaders to put people before profit and prioritize the health of our communities over the pollution that harms us. We deserve a future where our children's health is safeguarded, not sacrificed."
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What the Biden Admin Can Still Do to Defuse the LNG Bomb Before Trump Grabs the Trigger
At the very least what the administration can and must do is tell the truth: More LNG exports are not in the public interest.
Dec 04, 2024
When the environmental history of the Biden administration is written, the Inflation Reduction Act will have pride of place—for all its compromises and flaws, it finally set serious federal money flowing toward the task of an energy transition, and defending it from Trumpian attack will be job one for green lobbyists for the next for years. (And not an impossible job in every case—the new factories built with IRA money have turned a lot of legislators, including in red states, into reluctant supporters).
But the second most useful thing the Biden administration did came less than a year ago—its January decision to pause new permits for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals. This doesn’t sound to the untrained ear like such a big deal, but as readers of this newsletter know, it was: Had the industry continued to build at the pace it wanted, the climate damage from American LNG exports would soon have topped every single thing that happens in Europe. This is the biggest greenhouse gas bomb on planet Earth.
You could tell what a big deal it was by the way it angered Big Oil (and big banking and big shipping)—every story about the industry’s unprecedented support for Donald Trump’s election made it clear that this was the number one casus belli. That’s because—as American demand for natural gas begins to sag in the face of the renewables buildout—their main hope was to emulate the cigarette industry and seek new markets in Asia. But a combination of on-the-ground groups in the Gulf of Mexico and climate activists across the country stuck a potato in the tailpipe. The Biden administration promised a full report before the year was out about whether or not the exports were still in the public interest.
The rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind, and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow.
And yesterday, somewhat surprisingly, even before that report was released, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, slowed down the process some more. They issued a finding that the next terminal up for consideration, a mammoth facility called CP 2 destined for the Louisiana coast, needed to go through a new round of environmental review because of its potential effect on local air quality. As the experts at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) explained:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued an order setting aside its approval for Venture Global’s massive CP2 export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The order modifies and, in part, sets aside the commission’s previous authorization order to conduct a supplemental environmental impact analysis on the project’s cumulative air quality and emissions impacts. The order states that FERC will not authorize construction until the commission completes this process.
The vote for the new review is 4-0, and bipartisan. It could slow down approvals for the project till, perhaps, the third quarter of next year. And that’s good news, because the rationale for new LNG exports shrinks with each passing month, as the gap between the price of clean solar, wind, and battery power, and the price of fossil fuel, continues to grow.
The Biden administration should and could deny the permits outright, and here’s a petition urging them to do just that, and plans from Climate Defiance for demonstrations at the DOE next week. Most observers seem to think the denial is unlikely, especially after the FERC ruling gave them a plausible out on the most controversial of the projects. (And if they do deny them, the Trump administration might well be able to un-deny them, though at some point this all enters a valley of legal complication too thick for me to hack my way through.) Still—finish what you started. A year of investigation should have made clear that more LNG exports are not in the public interest, which means saying no.
At the very least what the Biden administration can and must do is tell the truth.
The detailed report on the economics and science of LNG exports is apparently all written and just waiting for the DOE to release, but in some ways almost as important as the report itself will be the cover letter that comes with it. The report will be dense; the language that introduces it should be clear. Though it won’t necessarily stop the new guys from doing what they want, it’s time for President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to declare forthrightly that
- There are too many of these projects in too small a space along the Gulf, and it is intolerable for the people who live there. As James Hiatt, director of For a Better Bayou, said this morning: “Through the lenses of optical gas imaging, we’ve seen massive plumes of toxic emissions, undeniable proof that these projects poison the air we breathe. Modeling must use the latest data from the most local sources to fully capture the harm these facilities inflict on Cameron Parish. Anything less is a betrayal of our community. FERC must choose justice over profit and stop sacrificing people for polluters.” People like Hiatt—and especially the indefatigable Roishetta Ozane—have fought as if their lives were on the line, because they are. What heroes!
- The U.S.—the leading LNG exporter in the world—is producing far more gas already than the world needs. The industry’s rhetorical defense has focused on the need to bolster European supplies after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—but Europe is now awash in gas, and has used the war to dramatically convert to renewable energy. Every long-term indication is that the continent needs more, not less. Which is why new contracts for LNG exports are designed for Asia—where they will undercut a similar conversion to sun and wind.
- In climate terms, exporting natural gas is at least as bad as exporting coal. Robert Howarth’s ground-breaking paper laying out the numerical proof was one of the keys in the battle to get the Biden pause; it’s since been published in a peer-reviewed journal. It documents the amount of heat-trapping methane that pours into the air at every point in this process. There is no possible way to square the expansion of LNG with reducing climate pollution. That won’t matter to Trump, of course, since he doesn’t believe in climate change, but it is a robust truth that needs to be stated clearly and publicly.
- In economic terms, this harms the American consumers who haven’t yet managed to install a heat pump and who are still dependent on natural gas. If shipload after shipload is sent overseas, every analysis has found, the price will go up for those Americans.
It took me far too long to figure out the danger these exports posed. I started writing about it for The New Yorker and on this newsletter in late summer of 2023, and once I understood the situation I stopped writing and started organizing, helping people like Jamie Henn and Jeremy Symons and Maura Cowley build an ad hoc climate wing of the coalition that won the pause. I’m very proud of the role Third Act played in mobilizing public opinion and I’m very proud of the role this small newsletter played too. The New York Times didn’t write a single story until the day before Biden’s decision when it was already a fait accompli; it took independent journalism and independent activism to make it happen.
One reason Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat broke my heart is because I think she would have quashed this expansion for good. But I’m hopeful that we delayed them long enough (especially given this new FERC ruling) to seriously screw up the prospects for endless expansion. Every month counts (and every month adds to financing costs); the great movement that arose to defeat these projects has taken more than a dozen months out of the calendar for their promoters, and that may well spell the difference for many projects.
The always-rational gas industry has treated its opponents with the usual respect—as one official of the Canadian producers explained recently, we are all part of a “cult-like” movement seeking “a kind of promised land where everything will operate in perfect balance.” Actually, we’re just a bunch of folks hoping for a planet that doesn’t burn right up—but to Big Oil that must look like pretty much the same thing. At any rate, if it’s a cult led by folks like Roishetta Ozane and James Hiatt, then this Methodist is happy to play his part.
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Gulf Coast Advocates: 2024 Election Is 'Inflection Point' for Climate Justice
One campaigner called November "a fork in the road for what type of political economy and climate future and racial justice future and public health future we want our federal government to create."
Aug 16, 2024
A second Trump presidency would be a "complete disaster" for the global climate and for Gulf Coast communities bearing the brunt of the buildout of liquefied natural gas terminals, frontline advocates and their allies warned.
The comments came during a press briefing on Thursday organized by Gas Exports Today, during which Vessel Project founder Roishetta Ozane, Better Brazoria director Melanie Oldham, and senior energy transition policy lead at Evergreen Action Mattea Mrkusic bore witness to the harm that the LNG export boom had already done to Texas and Louisiana, and called for a permanent ban.
"We are at this inflection point, and the election in November is a fork in the road for what type of political economy and climate future and racial justice future and public health future we want our federal government to create," Mrkusic told reporters.
'We Are Not a Sacrifice Zone'
The advocates began the briefing by detailing the harm that fossil fuels—in particular the recent ramping up of LNG export facilities—have already done to Gulf Coast communities. Currently, there are around 15 LNG terminals in operation or construction in Texas and Louisiana, and six more being reviewed.
Ozane, who was born in Louisiana and lost two homes to hurricanes Laura, Rita, and Delta, explained how oil and gas emissions polluted local air, water, and soil, threatening the health of residents including her own children. She recounted how her son, while driving down the aptly-named Sulphur Avenue in Louisiana, suddenly had a seizure for the first time in his life. He totaled the car and ended up in the hospital on life support, where he had several more seizures.
"The United States can no longer approve these projects in our community for the sake of the almighty dollar for oil and gas."
Looking for answers, Ozane spoke to several doctors before one in California told her that her son's seizure was due to "long-term industrial exposure." On the day of her son's fateful drive, there were major flares at the nearby Phillips 66 refinery and Bio-Lab. A few days earlier, there had also been an explosion at Calcasieu refinery.
"We are fighting on every front here, and we just want people to listen to us and to understand that we are dying. Our children are dying," Ozane said. "They are getting sick."
She continued: "This is not made up. This is not some type of scheme. This is not fake. We are real people. We are not a sacrifice zone. The United States can no longer approve these projects in our community for the sake of the almighty dollar for oil and gas."
Oldham, who lives in Freeport, Texas, discussed research she and Better Brazoria had done into a major 2022 explosion at Freeport LNG, a facility three to four miles from her home. One of the things they discovered was that, on the day of the explosion, the plant was operating 94 employees short. The excuse that Freeport LNG gave to regulators was that they could not find enough well-trained operators.
"That's frightening," Oldham said, noting that there are currently six LNG plants along the Texas coast. If those six plants "cannot find well-trained LNG operators, then why in the heck are they building and proposing more LNGs?" she asked.
When it comes to fossil fuel emissions, what happens in Texas and Louisiana does not stay there. Mrkusic focused on two recent world records "that never should have been broken."
The first is that July 2024 saw the hottest day on record; the second is that the U.S. has become in recent years the world's leading exporter of LNG.
That LNG expansion, the Sierra Club found in 2022, "thwarted" the stated U.S. climate goal of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.
"In what world does it make sense to double down on this dirty buildout?" Mrkusic asked.
'We Have an Alternative'
Whether or not the U.S. will choose to double down is one major issue at stake in the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the panelists said. That's because the election would likely determine the fate of the Biden administration's pause on the approval of new LNG exports.
The pause was put in place while the Department of Energy (DOE) updates the studies it uses to determine whether a given natural gas export request serves the public interest, as the last studies it relied on were conducted in 2018 and 2019 during the Trump administration. While a Louisiana-based, Trump-appointed judge blocked that pause in July, Mrkusic explained that no court order can stop the DOE from revising its public interest determination, something she expects it to finalize by the first quarter of 2025.
"We believe that if DOE fully accounts for... the cost of the LNG buildout in their studies, using the best available science, listening to frontline communities, measuring the cumulative public health impacts to those who live nearby, it'll be crystal clear that new export authorizations are not in the public interest," Mrkusic said.
"Under Trump, we could double down on even more dirty fossil fuel infrastructure that'll lock us into harmful pollution for decades to come."
However, the DOE deadline anticipated by Mrkusic and others falls after the election, and Trump has already pledged to approve pending LNG export terminals on day one of his administration. He also has a record of rolling back environmental protections and favoring the fossil fuel industry over climate concerns, and has promised fossil fuel CEOs to slash Biden administration climate regulations in exchange for $1 billion in campaign funds.
Oldham said that the "Trump administration set us back a decade or two when he was president regarding public health, environmental issues," and pointed to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which is widely understood to be the blueprint for a second Trump administration.
"It's pretty scary what they want to do as far as the environmental issues," Oldham said.
Oldham, Ozane, and Mrkusic spoke the same week that a number of studies were released warning of the climate and public health risks of extending the LNG buildout and implementing other Project 25 agenda points.
A Greenpeace USA and Sierra Club report found that permitting more LNG would claim an extra 707 to 1,110 lives and cost an added $9.88 billion to $15.1 billion in health costs through 2050.
Another report from Energy Innovation calculated that Project 2025, if put in place, would cause more than 2,000 early air pollution deaths by 2030 and spew an extra 4,920 metric megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Finally, a third study from Evergreen Action outlined the impacts of an LNG buildout under a second Trump administration, concluding that if every pending project were approved, as is likely, this would quadruple U.S. LNG export capacity compared with 2023 levels and emit 3.9 gigatons of climate pollution annually, or 63% of the nation's total climate pollution in 2021.
"But," Mrkusic said, "we do have an alternative."
She continued: "Under Trump, we could double down on even more dirty fossil fuel infrastructure that'll lock us into harmful pollution for decades to come. Or under a potential Harris administration, we would have a much better shot of building a thriving clean energy economy. And, as one part of that, we could land the Department of Energy's updated studies so that they fully account for the cost of LNG exports."
'Climate Champions'
Beyond its potential to block Trump and Project 2025, the Gulf Coast advocates spoke with genuine enthusiasm of what a Harris-Walz administration could do for the climate and frontline communities.
Ozane pointed to Harris' record of holding fossil fuel and other polluting companies to account as attorney general of California, as well as actions she had taken in the Biden administration, such as casting the deciding vote for the infrastructure bill.
"We know that she is a leader in herself, and she has shown that even aside from the current administration, that she is not afraid of taking on oil and gas," Ozane said.
"I feel strongly that Harris will be the better candidate for our cause."
She added that Harris' choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who also has a strong climate record, as running mate signals that she is listening to the climate movement in making her decisions.
"Walz and Harris are both climate champions," Ozane said. "We know that this ticket is what would be best when it relates to environmental justice, climate justice, us meeting our climate target, and not only will that be beneficial for the United States, but it will be beneficial for the entire world."
Oldham said that she would vote for Harris, who she thought might be better than U.S. President Joe Biden on some climate issues.
"I feel strongly that Harris will be the better candidate for our cause," Oldham said, comparing her to Trump. She added, "I think she'll speak up even more than Biden."
Harris does have her own weaknesses on environmental issues. When asked about her retraction of a 2020 primary campaign promise to ban fracking, Ozane acknowledged, "We know that none of these candidates are absolutely perfect."
"But," she added, "that doesn't mean that this isn't the best ticket, that there isn't still avenues for communication for us to get to what we're trying to get for our community."
Ozane herself is working on communicating those needs. She and others have asked Harris to travel to Louisiana and see the impacts of the LNG buildout firsthand. Ozane herself is speaking at the Louisiana Breakfast at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, and hopes to meet with Harris and Walz to articulate several asks from frontline Gulf advocates.
These include a commitment to make polluters pay for the damage they have already done in the region, a centering of frontline perspectives and solutions, continuing to fund initiatives like Justice40, revisiting the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that subsidize fossil fuels, reconsidering tax breaks for polluting companies operating in Louisiana, and not trialing experimental climate solutions like carbon capture and storage in already pollution-burdened communities.
"We no longer want to be sacrifices," Ozane said. "We no longer want things to be tried and tested in our communities."
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Senate Dems: Don’t Let Manchin Do Big Oil One Last Favor
Manchin’s latest attempt at permitting reform would try and force the approval of huge new LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast, which are both environmental justice nightmares and major carbon bombs.
Jul 26, 2024
A story. In December of 2015, everyone who worked on climate issues was in Paris for the white-knuckled final negotiations of the historic accords. While that was going on, Big Oil’s friends in Congress passed—almost without debate—an end to the longstanding ban on oil exports from the U.S. I cobbled together—with the help of the Sierra Club’s Mike Brune—what may have been the only op-ed opposing the measure, in a Paris cafe fueled by pain au chocolat. But the Democratic Senators I reached out to back home laughed—it wasn’t a big deal, they said, and anyway they were getting a production tax credit for wind energy in return. They were wrong: America in a decade has gone from not exporting oil and gas to becoming the world’s biggest producer. Bigger than Russia and the Saudis.
The moral of the story is: Big Oil is sneaky, and they will use moments when attention is diverted (say, by the advent of a truly powerful new presidential candidate) to advance their agenda. And the point of the story is: They’re trying it again.
A couple of days ago—while all of us were paying attention to Brat Summer, heterosectionality, and the general splendor of Kamala Harris’ first week (huge thanks to the members of the climate community who came together online last night to raise huge money for the campaign)—Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) announced he had cobbled together a new proposal for “permitting reform.” On the face of it, some of the new proposal makes real sense: Among other things, it would ease the process of approving the badly needed transmission lines for moving solar and wind power back and forth across the continent.
This week saw the hottest temperatures on our planet in at least the last 125,000 years. Get real.
But remember: Joe Manchin has taken more money from the fossil fuel industry than anyone else in D.C. (Which is saying something—he’s the Simone Biles of corruption). And so it’s not surprising that there’s a huge cost for this sane policy change: The bill will also try and force the approval of huge new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals along the Gulf Coast. This is not only disgusting on environmental justice grounds (watch Roishetta Ozane explain the cost to her community) but it is also the single biggest greenhouse gas bomb on planet Earth.
Jeremy Symons, the veteran climate analyst who has supplied the most relevant climate analyses throughout the LNG fight, came up with these numbers last night. If enacted, he said, the LNG portion of the Manchin bill would “lock in new greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 165 coal-fired power plants or more” and “erase the climate benefits of building 50 major renewable electricity transmission lines.” It is exactly, to the letter, what Project 2025 has called for.
And yet it has some actual chance of passing. Martin Heinrichs, the Democratic senator from New Mexico, endorsed it on Wednesday—which makes a certain amount of local sense, since the state derives an outsized share of its government revenues from taxes on gas production. But Heinrichs is selling out the planet to help his state. The question is, how many of his fellow Democrats will go along? Enough to allow this legislation to move through the upper chamber?
Because remember: The ultimate goal of climate policy is not to rewire America so it can use more renewable energy. That is a good goal, and it will make money for solar and wind developers which is why many of them will support this bill. But the goal of climate policy is to prevent the planet from overheating. And if you make renewable energy easier in America at the cost of addicting developing Asian economies to exported American LNG, you have taken an enormous step backward. (You’ve also screwed over the American consumers who still depend on natural gas and will now pay more, which is one reason senators like Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have taken a dim view of this proposed law).
The big green groups have come out strongly against it. Here’s the position of the League of Conservation Voters, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and EarthJustice, and the Sierra Club, and Oil Change International. And here’s mine: This week saw the hottest temperatures on our planet in at least the last 125,000 years. Get real.
This week saw the explosion of joy that comes when politicians stand up to business as usual. Don’t undermine all of it with a “deal” whose main beneficiary is Big Oil. Don’t give Joe Manchin a gift on his way out the door. Don’t do what you did in 2015, when you opened the door to the oil and gas export boom. Don’t turn off the same young voters that U.S. President Joe Biden turned off by approving the Willow oil complex. Don’t get in the way of the momentum we’re trying to build as November approaches.
And on top of all that political reality, there’s reality reality as well. Physics doesn’t get a vote in Congress, but it gets the only vote that matters in the real world. Pay attention to it for once!
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'Environmental Justice Nightmare': FERC Approves Major LNG Export Terminal Despite Biden Pause
"Even with FERC's reckless decision to approve CP2, the project cannot move forward without all federal permits, including those currently paused by the Department of Energy," one climate advocate said.
Jun 27, 2024
In what the Sunrise Movementcalled a "disastrous decision," the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 on Thursday to approve a certification for Venture Global's controversial Calcasieu Pass 2 liquefied natural gas terminal. The approval comes despite the fact that the company's first Calcasieu Pass terminal violated its air pollution permits more than 2,000 times during its first year in operation.
While expected, FERC's decision was widely condemned by climate justice advocates and frontline community groups. At the same time, CP2's opponents emphasized that the plant is unlikely to be built while the Department of Energy has paused the approval of LNG exports while it considers their impacts on the climate, consumers, and local communities.
"A rubber stamp from FERC is business-as-usual for fossil fuel projects," Lukas Ross, climate and energy justice deputy director at Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. "Thankfully CP2 has a long way to go and we intend to fight it every step of the way. No amount of lobbying will make this project anything other than a climate and environmental justice nightmare."
"We refuse to sink. We are going to fight them here. We are going to fight them at home. This is far from over."
Environmental groups say that CP2 is a "carbon bomb" that would emit 20 times more climate pollution over its lifetime than the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
"CP2 is a climate catastrophe," the Sunrise Movement wrote on social media. "It would produce more emissions than 46 coal-fired power plants and spew air pollution into marginalized communities."
It is also a key test case for a massive LNG buildout that threatens to raise domestic energy prices and shatter national climate goals.
As 350.org and Third Act co-founder Bill McKibbenpointed out in a Thursday column following the approval:
There's a huge pool of frackable gas sitting in the Permian Basin of Texas. The only way to monetize most of it is to ship it to Asia, persuading the fast-growing economies there to use it instead of wind and sun to make electricity. This scramble has been underway for about eight years, and LNG exports are already a giant industry; if Big Gas gets its way, within a few years American LNG exports from the Gulf of Mexico will be doing more climate damage than everything that happens in Europe.
Indeed, while the Virginia-based Venture Global has advertised its project as a boost to European energy security, around 65% of CP2's long-term Supply and Purchase Agreements are with Asia-Pacific oil companies, commodity speculators, or users.
The company also has a history of running roughshod over domestic environmental regulations and dismissing the needs and concerns of impacted communities. Its Calcasieu Pass plant, which is "technologically identical" in design to the proposed CP2, began operating in January 2022. Since then, residents of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, have reported frequent flaring, noise pollution, an uptick in cancer and other ailments, and fishing grounds polluted with dredging material.
"Make no mistake: CP2 is a carbon bomb threatening frontline communities with increased pollution and exacerbating the climate crisis," Allie Rosenbluth, United States program manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement. "Expanding LNG infrastructure jeopardizes the health and safety of nearby communities, undermines efforts to reduce fossil fuel dependency, and drives the climate crisis, economic instability, and conflict."
The one dissenting vote on FERC, outgoing Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements, justified her decision in part due to the project's potential to harm its neighbors.
"The commission has not adequately addressed the project's environmental and socioeconomic impacts, including adverse impacts on environmental justice communities," Clements said.
Following the vote, frontline leaders vowed to keep fighting the plant's construction.
"We refuse to sink. We are going to fight them here. We are going to fight them at home. This is far from over," said Travis Dardar, an Indigenous Cameron Parish fisherman who founded Fishermen Involved in Sustaining our Heritage (F.I.S.H.) to protest the LNG boom's impact on Gulf fishing.
However, activists also expressed an understanding that FERC was not the most favorable terrain in the fight.
Speaking outside FERC headquarters, Vessel Project of Louisiana founder Roishetta Ozane said it was time to "write off" the agency, according to E&E News.
"We're going to say that FERC is a rogue agency that does not care about communities," she said. "But who can do something while we are here is this administration. We need to continue to put pressure on the Department of Energy."
The DOE announced a pause on LNG export approvals in January while it revises the agency's criteria for what constitutes an export decision in the public interest. Since then, environmental advocates have called for the pause to be made permanent.
FERC's CP2 approval, they say, has clarified the stakes.
"Even with FERC's reckless decision to approve CP2, the project cannot move forward without all federal permits, including those currently paused by the Department of Energy," Rosenbluth said. "This illustrates just how critical the Department of Energy's pause and process to redefine 'public interest' are. President [Joe] Biden and the Department of Energy must listen to frontline communities and do all they can to permanently stop CP2 and all new LNG export terminals."
"If Trump and the GOP triumph, get ready for government of Big Oil by Big Oil for Big Oil until the Earth shall perish, which shouldn't take long."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media agreed.
"FERC has always been a rubber stamp for new gas export facilities—that's why we zeroed in on getting the Department of Energy to pause new export licenses and do a proper assessment," Henn wrote on social media. "With today's shameful decision, pressure is on POTUS and DOE to do the right thing."
Kelsey Crane, senior policy advocate at Earthworks, said: "FERC has once again threatened the Biden administration's own climate and environmental justice policies by advancing what could be the third largest fracked gas export project in Southwest Louisiana. If CP2 is constructed, Louisianans will be forced to breathe dirtier air, pay higher energy bills, and lose important livelihoods in the fishing industry. The United States will emit more greenhouse gas pollution and continue delaying the impending, just transition to clean energy."
"President Biden cannot allow this decision to stand and has to stop letting his agencies approve new fossil fuel projects in the Gulf South," Crane concluded.
McKibben wrote, "The only thing standing between CP2 and construction (and the only thing that can prevent the construction of a dozen more of these death stars in the nest few years) is the Department of Energy, aka the president of the United States."
While McKibben said that Venture Global could build CP2 without the export approval, he argued it was unlikely to do so until either the Biden DOE lifts the pause or former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has promised to do so, is elected president.
Because of Trump's pro-fossil fuel stance, McKibben argued that FERC's CP2 decision also underscores the stakes of the 2024 election.
"If Trump and the GOP triumph, get ready for government of Big Oil by Big Oil for Big Oil until the Earth shall perish, which shouldn't take long," he wrote.
While Biden is not guaranteed to extend the LNG export pause if reelected, "at least there will be a fight, and it will be one of the climactic battles of the fossil fuel era," McKibben said.
Speaking outside the FERC hearing, Ozane said the numbers on the climate justice side were growing.
"It was just two to three of us… and now it's hundreds," she told the crowd. "We are building power. We are building people power. We make the difference."
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Feds to Vote on CP2 Project as Climate Campaigners Protest LNG Buildout
"FERC's approval of this massive new LNG export facility would cut through the heart of President Biden's LNG pause, realizing one of the largest fossil fuel export projects ever proposed in the United States," an expert said.
Jun 21, 2024
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will formally consider issuing a permit for the Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal, a major fossil fuel infrastructure project in Louisiana that environmental campaigners oppose, according to a notice the agency released Thursday.
It will come to a vote at the agency's June 27 meeting, E&E News reported.
Environmentalists campaigned against the project last year but quieted down after the Biden administration paused all liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries in January.
The planned terminal, owned by Venture Global and often called CP2, has been noticeably absent from FERC meeting agendas since last July, when the agency published the environmental impact statement. Venture and other corporate interests have pressured the agency to move the project, which is located near the Gulf of Mexico in western Louisiana, up on the agenda—and finally gotten their wish.
Advocacy groups urged the federal agency to deny the permit.
"FERC's approval of this massive new LNG export facility would cut through the heart of President [Joe] Biden's LNG pause, realizing one of the largest fossil fuel export projects ever proposed in the United States," Food & Water Watch policy director Jim Walsh said in a statement.
"Biden claims to be concerned by the devastating climate and environmental impacts of continued LNG development, yet the country is on track to export more and more LNG for years to come—with or without his temporary partial pause," he added.
FERC announced it will vote on the CP2 LNG export facility next week. While the current LNG export pause is still a hurdle for the facility, Venture Global could start construction if they get FERC's approval. https://t.co/p7C25drePj
— Sara Sneath (@SaraSneath) June 21, 2024
CP2 is modeled on the existing Calcasieu Pass terminal (CP1), which began operations in January 2022 and has been the subject of scrutiny not just for its role in the distribution of fracked gas but also for a series of deviations from permitted activities, including alleged flaring that the company didn't report and the accidental release of 180,099 pounds of gas.
The planned site for CP2 is an area of wetlands next to CP1. Venture says that it's already started off-site construction and spent billions of dollars on CP2 and, with speedy government approval, would begin shipping LNG from the facility in 2026, according to LNGPrime.
If FERC were to approve the project, the U.S. Department of Energy would still have a statutory duty to approve future exports, but DOE is required to do so quickly, Walsh of Food & Water Watch told Common Dreams. Still, a key holdup for Venture would be the pause on exporting LNG to countries without free trade agreements—many of the company's contracts are with such countries, Walsh said.
FERC's slowness to place CP2 on its agenda was "welcomed," Walsh said, but "a real victory will be FERC rejecting this project, and failing that, President Biden's DOE denying their export license."
Walsh expressed concern that the U.S. "continues to ramp up export capacity even as we have a pause on new LNG export approvals."
Environmental and community groups have called on the Biden administration to ban LNG exports permanently, as Common Dreams reported last month, and a key part of that effort is blocking CP2 and closing CP1, they contend.
The groups have allies at the national level who've tried to draw attention to a project whose importance has often been overlooked.
Environmental campaigner and journalist Bill McKibben, who wrote a piece about CP2 for The New Yorker last year, has called the project "an environmental justice train wreck." He wrote in Common Dreams that CP2 is like Keystone XL "but with perhaps even more at stake." He also said that it could end up creating more than 20 times the emissions of the controversial Willow project in Alaska.
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