Fishermen and environmental groups fight giant LNG terminal in court • Louisiana Illuminator

Hot on the heels of its recent rulings that forced federal regulators to reconsider permits for three liquefied natural gas terminals, a federal court is now being asked to do the same for a fourth: Venture Global's planned Calcasieu Pass 2 terminal in Louisiana.

On September 4, environmental groups and residents filed two petitions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit challenging the denial of the Decision in June by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which approved construction of the planned $10 billion CP2.

Opponents of the power plant in southwest Louisiana call it a “carbon bomb” whose greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to 1.8 million gasoline-powered cars – more than the total number of vehicles registered in the entire state.

Since FERC approved CP2, the Court has in separate cases denied FERC’s approval of the Rio Grande, Texas And Commonwealth LNG facilities. The court rejected FERC's decisions on those terminals, citing inadequate consideration of their impacts on environmental justice, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and other factors.

“In recent weeks, federal courts have repeatedly confirmed that methods like those used by FERC here are inadequate and unlawful. We believe the court will again find that FERC failed in its task,” said Nathan Matthews, senior counsel for the Sierra Club, in a statement. The Sierra Club filed one of the petitions Challenging the CP2 decision on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Louisiana Bucket Brigade and other environmental organizations.

Megan Gibson, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said FERC had conducted “little to no analysis of these incredibly dramatic impacts on the local community.” SELC filed a petition to revoke the CP2 permit on behalf of commercial fishermen and landowners in the region.

“You know, aside from the fact that it's illegal,” Gibson said, “it's a shock to the conscience.”

FERC spokeswoman Mary O'Driscoll said the commission does not comment on judicial matters. Venture Global did not respond to a request for comment.

In less than a decade, US exports of super-chilled methane gas have grown from almost zero to the world's largest exporter. In January, the Biden administration gave a break on the authorisation of LNG exports to some countries in order to assess the impact of fuel exports. This decision was overturned by a federal judge in July.

On September 3, the Department of Energy published its first permit Since the pause was lifted, the green light has been given for the construction of a floating terminal off the coast of Mexico to export US gas.

Shortly before her resignation in June, former FERC Commissioner Allison Clements officially different opinion on the CP2 decision of her two fellow commissioners. She said she could not agree that the 2-1 approval of the project was consistent with the public interest because FERC had not “meaningfully assessed” the project's serious impacts on local communities or the environment.

James Hiatt, whose organization For a Better Bayou is represented on the SELC petition, said residents have “keenly felt” the industry's negative impacts since Venture Global began producing liquefied natural gas at its Calcasieu Pass terminal – next to the planned CP2 plant – two years ago. Crabbers and fishermen have to travel farther out and stay out longer to catch their catch, he said.

“I heard the chairman (FERC) say, 'Well, we've imposed about a hundred conditions on CP2 to mitigate all of this damage,'” Hiatt told Floodlight. “You can't mitigate the potential explosion of a plant or the ecological collapse that's happening right now. You can't just mitigate that away.”

The impact could be magnified if more of the approved LNG terminals like CP2 are built, Gibson said, adding: “73 percent of the LNG facilities already approved by FERC have yet to be built, which is another 19 projects.”

The US Energy Information Administration recently calculated If all of these approved facilities are built, North America's liquefied natural gas exports would more than double, from 11.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2023 to 24.4 billion in 2028.

The recent decisions may be a sign that the court is beginning to understand the magnitude and impact of LNG terminals – some of which are the size of cities – on surrounding communities.Elizabeth Calderon, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, focuses on expanding the Gulf Coast LNG network.

“It looks like the DC Circuit is recognizing how bad FERC's decisions have been and how blind it is to environmental justice and the people who live near these monster facilities,” she said.

The nonprofit is not involved in the two petitions, but has sued Louisiana over a coastal use permit granted to CP2.

“The scale of these facilities,” said Calderon, “is really unlike anything we have dealt with before.”

Headlights is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests that are delaying climate action.