Gas export

Massive CP2 LNG Export Facility Faces New Legal Hurdle Over FERC Approval

September 8, 2024 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. Resist! Energy, FERC, Gas export, Louisiana

Environmental advocates, landowners, and fishers filed two petitions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday, challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) recent authorization for the construction of a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. FERC approved the Calcasieu Pass (CP2) LNG terminal proposed by Venture Global in a 2-1 vote in late June. “The approval of the CP2 LNG project is a clear indication that FERC is serving the interests of powerful industry actors rather than protecting vulnerable communities and upholding the public interest,” James Hiatt, a former oil refinery worker and Director of the Louisiana-based nonprofit For a Better Bayou, wrote in a prepared statement.

Oil And Gas Production Set To Escalate Under Landmark US Climate Law

November 24, 2023 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Gas export, Joe Biden, Oil and Gas

A new report warns that oil and gas production in the United States is expected to rise under Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), even as the legislation helps to moderately lower fossil fuel demand through billions of dollars in clean energy investments. The report, “Biden’s Fossil Fuel Fail: How U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Rises under the Inflation Reduction Act, Exacerbating Environmental Injustice,” details how, despite the IRA’s significant spending on renewable energy, electric vehicles, and batteries, the policy will not be enough for the U.S. to meet its 2030 climate target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels.

Carbon Capture Project Is ‘Band-Aid’ To Greenwash $10 Billion LNG Plant

February 4, 2023 Matthew Green, DeSmog. Resist! Carbon Capture, climate crisis, Gas export, greenwashing, Texas

As the Mexican Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, festivities drew to a close, Dina Nuñez called to order a meeting of women grassroots activists in a modest home in the heart of Port Isabel, Texas. Top of her agenda: how to stop a Houston-based oil and gas company from building a $10 billion project to export liquefied natural gas on a nearby stretch of coast. For Nuñez and her friends, the fight against the scheme — known as Rio Grande LNG — is about protecting their community from air pollution; preserving shrimping and tourism; and defending habitats for pelicans, endangered ocelots, and aplomado falcons at the project site on unspoiled wetlands between Port Isabel and the larger city of Brownsville. The claim by developer NextDecade to be building the “greenest LNG project in the world” has thrust the women to the forefront of a global struggle.

As US LNG Expands In Europe, A Hidden Threat Grows

June 11, 2022 Justin Nobel, DeSmog. Educate! Energy, Gas export, health, Radiation

In March, President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint task force with the goal of getting Europe off Russian gas and onto more of America’s fracked gas. Most Russian gas reaches Europe via pipeline, so getting U.S. gas to Europe will involve liquifying it and then shipping it across the Atlantic. And as shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States increase, so too do the threats from an unwelcome intruder inherently part of America’s natural gas mix — radioactivity. That’s because government figures indicate that much of the gas that will be shipped to Europe may come from the Marcellus and Utica, black shale formations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Public Comment Is Taking A Back Seat In Biden’s Push To Export More LNG

May 28, 2022 Julie Dermansky, DeSmog. Educate! Energy, Gas export, Joe Biden, Oil and Gas

During a virtual meeting on May 11, the public had an opportunity to comment on a proposed floating LNG export facility 16 miles off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana, a barrier island that was badly crippled last year by Hurricane Ida and is still recovering. Proposed by New Fortress Energy (NFE), the planned facility will be a floating offshore export terminal that would treat, liquefy, and store methane gas before loading it onto ships headed abroad. If realized, the terminal could export up to the equivalent of 145 billion cubic feet of the fossil fuel per year. Its application comes shortly after the Biden administration committed in March “to make available up to 15 billion cubic meters additional LNG this year” in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s attempts to reduce dependency on Russian gas.

Biden’s Call To Increase Gas Exports Is Equal To Palin’s ‘Drill Baby Drill’

April 5, 2022 Julie Dermansky, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Fracking, Gas export, Joe Biden

Travis Dardar, an indigenous fisherman in Cameron, Louisiana, has a front-row view of the expansion of the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry’s export capacity on the Gulf Coast — and it isn’t pretty. “It disgusts me what man is doing to the planet,” Dardar told me as I photographed flares at the recently built Venture Global Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility from his boat out in the Calcasieu Ship Channel, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. I met Travis and his wife Nicole Dardar on March 17, before attending an air quality permit hearing held by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) in Cameron for another proposed LNG export project by Commonwealth LNG, a Texas-based company. The couple wasn’t aware of the permit hearing for Commonwealth LNG’s new export terminal project until I mentioned it to them.

Study: Increased LNG Exports Spell Climate Trouble

December 16, 2017 Ellen M. Gilmer and Jenny Mandel, eenews.net Educate! Climate Change, Gas export, LNG

"There are good reasons for that: It's difficult. The analysis is not the easiest thing in the world. It takes time to develop systems and methods and develop cross-agency and cross-academia expertise in those areas," he added. "But really the implications from our paper are that the greenhouse gas impacts from exporting U.S. natural gas, if you're really looking at how it impacts things here at home and abroad, can be very, very bad." That's because large volumes of U.S. LNG may not actually replace dirtier sources. Instead, the study says, exports could simply add more fossil fuels to the mix for electricity, industry and other uses, while prolonging the lives of American coal-fired plants.

Comments Supporting Gas Exports Rule Are Recycled Industry Copy-Pastes

October 30, 2017 Steve Horn, www.desmogblog.com Educate! Gas export, Lobbying, Propaganda

By Steve Horn for Desmog - A review of the comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on its proposed rule to fast-track the export of small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) shows that roughly two dozen of of the 89 comments were directly copy-pasted from either industry itself or else pro-industry materials written by the DOE or Congress. Furthermore, all of those copy-pasted comments are anonymous, a hint that the oil and gas industry may be behind an astroturf-style comment-submitting campaign for this rule. Only one letter favoring the proposed rule, written by the American Petroleum Institute and the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, has the industry's name on it. Three other comments supporting the rule have actual names of individuals, a law school student, a college student, and an individual who DeSmog confirmed wrote the comment out of personal interest and for a public policy course at his university. The rule, which the DOE proposed on the Friday before Labor Day, would assume exports of small-scale LNG — these days mostly obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the U.S. — are automatically in the “public interest” as defined by the Natural Gas Act of 1938. Comments for the proposed rule closed on October 16 and then posted online on October 24.

Is There Are Drug/Alcohol Problem At Cove Point Gas Terminal?

October 27, 2016 Mark Hand, www.dcmediagroup.us Educate! Drugs, Export Terminals, Gas export

By Mark Hand for DC Media Group - Local police conducted a sobriety checkpoint in southern Calvert County, Md., to ensure construction workers at the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, owned by Dominion Resources Inc., were not drunk or using drugs as they headed to work. The early morning checkpoint occurred on the same day that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) employees traveled to Calvert County for a routine inspection of the Cove Point construction project.

Challenging Feds’ Approval Of Cove Point Gas Export Facility

April 20, 2016 Kelly Trout, www.chesapeakeclimate.org Resist! Environment, Gas export, Maryland

By Kelly Trout for CCAN - WASHINGTON, D.C.—Environmental groups faced off with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today, arguing that the agency illegally overlooked significant pollution and human safety risks in approving a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal along the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland. The $3.8 billion Cove Point facility was approved in October 2014 and is currently under construction by Cove Point LNG, LP, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources.

Gas Export Decision Stirs Debate Over Mass. Pipeline Need

April 1, 2016 Bruce Gellerman, www.wbur.org Resist! Gas export, Pipelines

By Bruce Gellerman for WBUR - Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy approved plans permitting companies to export gas from Massachusetts to Canada and beyond. Opponents of the construction of two new natural gas pipelines in Massachusetts claim the DOE’s decision demonstrates that the state already has enough natural gas and doesn’t need new pipelines. But proponents say building the new pipelines — costing $8 billion — will actually save ratepayers money and secure the region’s energy future.

Newsletter: When People Mobilize, We Can Win

February 28, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Climate Change, Cove Point, fast track, FCC Internet, Fracking, Gas, Gas export, Net Neutrality, Reclassification, TPP, Trade

This week was a busy one for Popular Resistance as three key campaigns had major updates. The success of the ten-month campaign to reclassify the Internet as a common carrier under Title II of the Federal Communications Act to ensure net neutrality has been widely reported. While widely reported, not all the reports described how the movement actually achieved it or what it means. We held a three-day sit-in at Senator Ron Wyden’s office. We are focused on Wyden because he is negotiating with Senator Orrin Hatch on Fast Track legislation. If Wyden joins with Hatch he will provide cover to other Democrats by making this a bi-partisan bill. The campaign to save Cove Point from a Dominion Resources fracked gas export terminal had a major event this week when 24 people went on trial.

‘Dominion Get Out. Don’t Frack Maryland. No Gas Exports.’

February 3, 2015 SEED Staff, www.seedcoalition.wordpress.com/ Resist! Cove Point, Fracking, Gas export, Maryland

Early this morning, Maryland teacher Carling Sothoron climbed a 150-foot-tall crane at a construction site in Lusby, Maryland, that is part of the Dominion Cove Point liquefied natural gas export terminal project. She hung a banner reading “Dominion get out. Don’t frack Maryland. No gas exports. Save Cove Point.” Sothoron is part of Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction (SEED), an umbrella group of mid-Atlantic activists fighting dirty energy projects. She remains on the crane. Heather Doyle, another SEED activist who stayed at the bottom of the crane to provide assistance to Sothoron, has been detained by law enforcement. ”The Dominion Cove Point LNG project is negatively impacting the environment and community in Lusby, MD. We are already seeing that it will directly lead to massive expansion of natural gas drilling and infrastructure throughout the mid-Atlantic region, from the coast to the Appalachian Mountains. I’m taking direct action today because I’m not willing to let the natural gas industry destroy Maryland, my home,” said Sothoron.

Stop This Dangerous Fracked Gas Export Terminal

December 29, 2014 Staff, www.WeAreCovePoint.org Create! Climate Change, Cove Point, Environment, Extreme Energy, Fracking, Gas, Gas export

We Are Cove Point is a campaign created by local residents from Lusby, MD and allies from across the United States to stop the construction of the first LNG (liquefied natural gas, aka fracked gas) export terminal on the East coast. It is being built by Dominion on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Here are a few of the reasons why this export terminal must be stopped: 1. It sets a dangerous precedent as the first fracked gas refinery to be built in a densely populated area, literally across the street from homes and next to youth sports fields. With ten more export facilities planned in the US, we don't want other communities to be threatened like we are. 2. Not only does the risk of a catastrophic explosion or chemical spill threaten the families of Cove Point, but the facility will spew 20.4 tons of cancer and disease causing toxins as well as 3.3 million tons of Greenhouse Gases into the air each year. Dominion bought pollution credits that allow them to poison the local community. 3. The export facility will drive construction of more pipelines, compressor stations and fracking rigs from Massachusetts to North Carolina which will place more communities at risk of catastrophic events and poisoning of their air, land and water. This export terminal is to the Marcellus Shale what the Keystone XL and other pipelines are to the Alberta tar sands. Gas corporations need export terminals to send fracked gas overseas where prices are higher in order to make fracking profitable. 4. The carbon in the East coast’s Marcellus Shale, which covers 7 states, must stay in the ground. Like the Alberta Tar Sands, it is a carbon bomb that will amplify the climate crisis.

Daily movement news and resources