Photo courtesy of Talia Calnek-Sugin
Exporting liquefied methane gas, known as liquefied “natural” gas (LNG), has shot up the agenda of US federal policymakers as part of global energy security discussions. The war in Ukraine has led to a severe undersupply of gas in Europe, and US LNG companies are eager to capitalize on the opportunity to pile on to their already record profits by calling for increased export capacity. The story about where the gas is going is plastered across the news, but there has been a concerning lack of discussion about where that gas is coming from and LNG’s impacts on the communities where gas is processed for shipping overseas.
The majority of US LNG is fracked in the Permian Basin, an oil- and gas-rich area between New Mexico and Texas. It travels through pipelines across New Mexico and Texas, then is supercooled and loaded into ships along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. I live and work in Washington, DC, but I recently traveled to Lake Charles, Louisiana and Port Arthur, Texas to see the places and meet the people affected by the rapid buildout of LNG export infrastructure. Here are four takeaways I hope federal policymakers – who play an important role in permitting and financing facilities – take into account when deciding whether to support LNG export expansion:
1. The toxicity and pollution of LNG export facilities is far worse than we hear about
Driving around Port Arthur, Texas is like landing in an apocalyptic movie: miles upon miles of heavy industry, gas flares the size of bonfires spewing pollutants, gushing streams of yellow wastewater emptying into waterways, and a sharp smell of petrochemical dust that burns your eyes and chest. LNG export facilities, recent additions to Port Arthur and Lake Charles, are sandwiched into an existing landscape of refineries and plastics companies, where their essentially unregulated toxic flaring, water contamination, and not-uncommon explosions contribute to some of the highest rates of pollution in the country.
The giant gas companies that own these facilities have no concern for the health of people and ecosystems. They build LNG facilities directly upwind and upstream of people’s homes, down the street from schools, and alongside fishing huts. Everyone in Port Arthur has a relative who has died of cancer, and fish caught near Lake Charles is no longer safe to eat. What’s more, existing and proposed facilities are built on some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems: Cheniere’s Sabine Pass and Exxon’s Golden Pass dominate the once-pristine Sea Rim State Park, a bird-rich inlet to the Gulf of Mexico.
US policymakers who brag that US LNG is the “cleanest” natural gas in the world have clearly never seen the twelve flares always burning at Sabine Pass or smelled the fumes coming from Cameron LNG (which just had a benzene leak). They speak about LNG facilities as if they exist in isolation, when in reality they are built in close proximity to one another and alongside existing refineries and petrochemical facilities—burdening communities with the cumulative impacts of countless pollution sources.
Wastewater from Motiva Refinery emptied into public canal in Port Arthur, Texas. Photo Source: James Hiatt, Louisiana Bucket Brigade
2. LNG is not the economic boon the industry claims
In DC and on the news, we hear that the fossil fuel industry is supporting Gulf Coast communities through jobs and tax revenues. Neither is true.
Take jobs. As one Lake Charles resident reported, in 2019 the LNG industry—despite massive growth in production—added only a handful of jobs for locals. She joked that she liked to bring people to LNG facility parking lots to count license plates; the grand majority are always from out of state. Furthermore, the few locals who do work in LNG are generally employed by contracting companies, who take a large cut of the pay and provide little-to-no job security. This jobs story is not unique; a recent Energy Department study found that the fossil fuel industry cut jobs in 2021 despite increased production.
The LNG industry also leeches resources from local communities by paying negligible taxes. For example, Cameron LNG (worth $11.7 billion) and Sabine Pass LNG (worth $12.8 billion), are exempt from paying property taxes on 99 percent of their value. Without this tax revenue, municipal services like education and public transportation go chronically underfunded. The Louisiana education system, which suffers from a decade-long spending freeze, ranks one of the worst in the country.
3. The Biden administration has a long way to go on environmental justice
North Lake Charles, the predominantly Black, low-income side of the city, is still in disarray from 2020 hurricanes Laura and Delta, while on white, wealthy Shore Beach Drive, you’d never guess a hurricane had hit. Federal aid didn’t arrive in North Lake Charles in the immediate hurricane aftermath and mostly still hasn't. The neighborhood is still a food desert, and 1,500 people live in temporary trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In Port Arthur, the once-thriving downtown and historic westside neighborhoods that were filled with Black-owned businesses are now dominated by boarded-up buildings. Black neighborhoods throughout the region are located downwind of fossil fuel facilities and have seen property values plummet over 40 percent due to flooding and air, water, and noise pollution.
All of the EPA’s EJScreen environmental and demographic indicators point to these communities as priorities for the Biden Administration’s environmental justice initiatives. Yet, residents have had little if any support from the federal government to deal with the intersecting crises of pollution, poverty, and climate-induced extreme weather. If the administration is serious about environmental justice, it needs to be listening to what these communities want and need, whether it’s funding to rebuild houses, enforcement of air pollution regulations, or support to build clean industries that provide alternatives to working in fossil fuels.
4. A local movement is building to stop industry expansion and build a better future
Port Arthur Community Action Network (PACAN) meeting, led by John Beard, discussing issues important to the community including public health and climate change. Photo Source: Talia Calnek-Sugin
Communities are not waiting around for DC policymakers to come to their aid. There is a quickly growing movement to stand up to the fossil fuel industry in Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana—a movement that recognizes that issues of racism, pollution, poverty, and climate change are all interconnected, and that, as one community member put it, “It always comes back to industry.” Residents are organizing to provide food and shelter for their neighbors as they fight to install air monitoring systems outside homes and halt the expansion of LNG facilities into the remaining wetlands.
But they’re not just fighting to stop industry. They’re fighting for a better future— one with clean air, resilience to rising sea levels, and alternative industries like tourism and clean energy. And they are not just fighting for their own communities, but for the global community. As one Southwest Louisiana activist aptly put it, “What happens to our planet in the next 50 years depends on what happens here in the next four years.”
The Biden administration and Congress should be doing everything they can to support locals’ fight to stop the expansion of LNG exports and build healthy economies and communities. Proposed LNG infrastructure will do nothing to help Europe meet its short-term energy needs since terminals take three to five years to build. But this buildout would make it impossible to avoid catastrophic climate change and would have devastating impacts on Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems. Federal policymakers have made ambitious commitments on climate action and environmental justice; their choices on LNG export expansion will determine whether they can achieve them.