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gulf coast
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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68 'Summer of Heat' Activists Arrested in NYC Protesting Citgroup's Fossil Fuel Financing
"Citi's business model is frying our planet," said one campaigner.
Jun 28, 2024
Scores of activists were arrested Friday during a protest outside Citigroup's New York City headquarters, where demonstrators condemned what organizers called the megabank's "racist investments devastating Black and brown communities" and fueling the worsening climate emergency.
Around 1,000 people including environmental leaders from the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana gathered at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan's Financial District, where they rallied before marching to "demand that Wall Street stop funding the fossil fuel projects causing environmental devastation in mostly Black and brown communities in the Gulf South and across the globe."
The march ended at Citigroup's headquarters on the west side of Lower Manhattan, where organizers from New York Communities for Change said 68 people were arrested. The group said a total of 259 activists have been arrested during ongoing Summer of Heat on Wall Street protests, which it organized along with Stop the Money Pipeline, Climate Defenders, and Planet Over Profit.
"On Monday, climate activists from the Gulf South and allies held a roving speak out in front of financial institutions backing the fossil fuel industry, including KKR, BlackRock, and Bank of America," New York Communities for Change said. "On Wednesday, protesters held a civil disobedience action in front of the insurance conglomerate Chubb, which insures petrochemical projects destroying the climate in the Gulf South and around the globe."
One of the protest's organizers, Roishetta Ozane—who founded the Vessel Project of Louisiana—said that "projects that kill our communities like Freeport LNG (liquefied natural gas), Cameron LNG, Corpus Christi LNG, and others would not exist without the backing of financial institutions like Citigroup."
"Money made from them is blood money," Ozane added. "Since they destroy our homes, we're coming to pay them a visit. We will break this cycle of violence and exploitation now because later is too late. We want Citigroup to stop funding fossil fuels and to stop hurting our communities and our families."
As Stop the Money Pipeline coordinator Alec Connon explained in an opinion piece published earlier this month by Common Dreams:
Since the adoption of the Paris agreement in 2015, Citi has provided $204.46 billion in financing to the company's most rapidly developing new coal, oil, and gas fields. Remarkably, Citi has provided more money to those oil and gas companies than even JPMorgan Chase―the bank that climate activists like to call the 'Doomsday Bank.'
To be clear, I'm talking here only about the financing Citi has provided for companies developing new oil and gas reserves, not merely investing in infrastructure to keep the oil pumping from existing reserves. When we take into account financing to all fossil fuel companies, Citi has provided a little shy of $400 billion to coal, oil, and gas companies since 2015.
Citigroup contends that it is "supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy through our net zero commitments and our $1 trillion sustainable finance goal," and that its "approach reflects the need to transition while also continuing to meet global energy needs."
However, Climate Defenders organizing director Marlena Fontes countered that "Citi's business model is frying our planet."
"Every credible climate scientist says that we can't afford to put one more penny into fossil fuels, but Citi is the number one funder of fossil fuel expansion in the world," Fontes added. "Until Citi stops funding fossil fuels, they can expect resistance from everyday people like us who want our children to be able to play outside without coughing on wildfire smoke or getting sick from deadly heatwaves."
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300+ Groups Appeal to US at COP28: End All Support of LNG
The coalition charged that "the explosion of LNG exports from the U.S." is "an especially egregious move considering that the United States has already used up far more than its fair share."
Dec 08, 2023
With less than a week left of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, more than 300 groups from over 40 countries on Friday urged the Biden administration to end the permitting of new liquefied natural gas terminals in the United States and cut off diplomatic and financial support for LNG projects abroad.
The coalition began its letter to U.S. President Joe Biden—who is already under fire for skipping the conference—by pointing out that "the United States arrives at the COP28 climate negotiations as both the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas terminals (LNG) and the largest historic greenhouse gas emitter."
"The global expansion of LNG infrastructure is locking in decades of emissions–endangering the health of people and the planet today and for generations to come, exacerbating environmental injustice in historically marginalized communities, and entrenching fossil fuel sacrifice zones," the organizations wrote, specifically highlighting the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"Why must we let LNG poison our waters, destroy biodiversity, and drive us further to climate chaos?"
"The danger is further magnified by the pipeline of proposed projects, such as the mammoth Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana," the coalition stressed, echoing a recent letter from groups representing over 70,000 healthcare workers. "These pending projects threaten to lock in an annual 1,400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions—equivalent to 378 new coal plants."
The letter also emphasizes that "although leakage across the LNG supply chain helps make the fuel substantially worse for the climate than coal, reducing methane is not a silver bullet and risks justifying further industry expansion," and calls for pairing methane reduction pledges "with commitments to completely phase out fossil fuels."
Oil Change International global policy manager Romain Ioualalen—whose group is part of the coalition—noted in a statement Friday that the latest draft COP28 agreement "shows we have never been closer to an agreement on a fossil fuel phaseout. But, what that transition will look like will be a fierce battle over the next few days."
"We are alarmed about some of the options in this text that seem to carve out large loopholes for the fossil fuel industry," he added. "The draft is also missing a clear recognition that developed countries will need to phase out faster and provide their fair share of finance, as well as a recognition that the decline of fossil fuel production must start immediately, not in the distant future."
Other members of the coalition include the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Extinction Rebellion U.S., Food & Water Watch, Fridays for Future USA, Friends of the Earth International, Global Justice Now, Greenpeace USA, Indigenous Environmental Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and 350.org.
"The explosion of LNG exports from the U.S. represents an extreme grab of the limited carbon budget remaining to constrain global temperature rise to under 1.5°C, an especially egregious move considering that the United States has already used up far more than its fair share," the coalition charged, referring to the Paris agreement's bolder goal.
"Any push for a phaseout of all fossil fuels at COP28 risks falling flat if the world's leading LNG exporter shows no signs of changing course," the letter concludes. "We urge the Biden administration to publicly commit during the COP to no further regulatory, financial, or diplomatic support for LNG in the U.S. or anywhere in the world."
Coalition members echoed that call for action. Krishna Ariola of Youth for Climate Hope Philippines declared that "Southeast Asia is being shaped into an LNG import hub. Lies peddled by countries like Japan, the United States, South Korea, and countries in Europe paint gas as a transition fuel, but our people and environment have paid a steep price."
"In the Philippines, the biodiversity-rich Verde Island Passage hosts the biggest concentration of LNG projects in the country," she continued. "Why must we let LNG poison our waters, destroy biodiversity, and drive us further to climate chaos? The Philippines and Southeast Asia are more than capable of powering our region with renewables at a timeframe compatible to 1.5°C. The mad dash for gas is nothing but a blockade to a renewable energy future."
Roishetta Ozane, founder and director of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said that "communities like mine in the Gulf South are dying from the Biden administration's failure to stop fossil fuel expansion."
Noting that the Calcasieu Pass 2 facility "would produce the largest volume of LNG ever approved in the United States for export," Ozane argued that "to be on the right side of history, Biden must reject CP2 and all other gas export projects, and support a fast, fair, and full fossil fuel phaseout here at COP28."
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