It’s been a mixed bag this week for climate news in the U.S. A somewhat surprising but hopeful development is HR 5376, a Schumer-Manchin bill that finally allocates $369 billion in funding for climate projects—albeit with carveouts for carbon capture and sequestration and an increase in oil and gas lease sales on public lands and waters. Also this week, the Energy Information Administration announced that the U.S. is now the world leader in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. And, piggybacking off of that LNG momentum: Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Freeport LNG’s request to expand its capacity at its Texas site despite a recent explosion that wreaked havoc on production.
Investigators still don’t know what caused the explosion, which sent a massive 450-foot-high fireball into the atmosphere. And FERC won’t even be on site for an inspection until mid-September. That still didn’t stop FERC from siding with Freeport LNG, the country’s second-largest LNG export facility, in its monthly meeting.
FERC’s decision also sends a chilling message to organizers from the Gulf South who traveled 1,500 miles to the agency’s headquarters to protest its ongoing support of the LNG industry. “They’re always going to side with industry,” Port Arthur Community Action Network founder John Beard said during a press conference. “But at some point, you have to side with people. And exporting natural gas is an existential threat to every single living thing on this planet.”
Sierra Club Senior Director of Energy Campaigns Kelly Sheehan was similarly frustrated by FERC’s decision. “Liquified methane gas export facilities are risky, explosive, and expansion is absolutely not in the public interest,” Sheehan said in a statement. “Building out additional LNG export capacity would perpetuate cumulative impacts of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color in the Gulf Coast and undermine our progress toward climate action by locking the country into risky, dirty infrastructure for decades. … FERC has a duty to American communities and consumers, but instead, they are helping to line the pockets of billion-dollar gas companies and their executives.”
In addition to approving Freeport LNG’s request, FERC also signed off on a new natural gas facility in Oregon and approved a plan to jumpstart construction on an existing Texas LNG facility.