Exploiting Ukraine Crisis to Ramp Up Fossil Fuel Expansion Is Dangerous and Deadly

Here in Port Arthur, we know firsthand the cost of our country's addiction to fossil fuels. As Ukranians fight for their country, the fossil fuel industry in the United States and its political allies have chosen to capitalize on the ongoing crisis. The same companies who made tens of billions of dollars working hand-in-hand with Putin for years in Russia--like BP, Exxon, and Shell--are now making record profits while gas prices rise, and pushing for increased drilling.

President Biden, with the stroke of his pen, could use his executive authority to stop the approval of any new fossil fuel projects and declare a national climate emergency--setting us on the path to renewable energy and putting our communities' health and safety before Big Oil's agenda.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats, like Senator Joe Manchin, are calling for fossil fuel expansion and using proposed sanctions on Russian gas as a cover. Just last week, President Biden approved more liquified natural gas (LNG) exports from the Gulf Coast to Europe in an effort to lessen their dependence on Russian energy. But new fossil fuel projects and more drilling won't impact short-term prices at the pump, or support Europe's current gas shortage.

Here's the reality: President Biden and European leaders' deal to ramp up new fossil fuel infrastructure and fracked gas exports is a death sentence for those of us on the frontlines of this climate emergency.

Many communities like mine in Port Arthur are already overburdened from the toxic impacts of fracked gas infrastructure. Our city has experienced five major hurricanes in the last fifteen years, numerous floods, storm surges and extreme weather events induced by hydrocarbon-fueled climate change. We are home to two natural gas facilities, with a third in the permitting process. And there are numerous other petrochemical plants that contaminate our air and water, along with two "gross emitters'' that are responsible for unhealthy air quality: OxBow Calcining and Valero Refinery. If you need an illustration of why we need to curb fossil fuels, you'll find it here, and as someone who spent 38 years working as a process operator at the ExxonMobil Beaumont refinery, I've seen the damage firsthand.

Our community has twice the national average for cancer, lung, heart, and kidney disease. People are dying every day from the impacts of COPD lung disease. We are feeling the impacts of the fossil fuel industry, right now. Yet, the Biden administration and EU gave the fossil fuel industry a greenlight to transform the Gulf Coast into a sacrifice zone for fracked gas.

Routinely, communities of color across the Gulf bear the brunt of air and water pollution, get displaced due to industry operations, and receive inadequate hurricane relief while fossil fuel corporations are getting billion dollar tax breaks to pollute our neighborhoods. President Biden can't call himself "the climate president" while ignoring the needs and realities of impacted communities. We can not and will not continue to be a sacrifice zone for the sole benefit of Big Oil and their profits. The industry's claims about what is good for our country cannot trump the lives and wellbeing of people in Port Arthur and other communities across the country. Our national security interests should work in tandem with these interests. We refuse to be sacrificed for political agendas and corporate greed.

If we allow the fossil fuel expansion that President Biden, Senator Manchin, Congressional Republicans, and the oil profiteers want at this point, we won't be able to undo the devastating impacts it'll have on our climate and communities for decades to come.

Big Oil is only focused on the here and now--increasing their profits--but new fossil fuel infrastructure takes years to build, so doubling down on new gas exports projects won't do anything to lower prices or meet Europe's current crisis. It'll just keep us dependent on expensive fossil fuels and further wreck our climate while enriching the same few fossil fuel executives. Instead of repeating the mistakes of the past, we need to use this moment to catalyze a rapid shift to renewable energy through a renewable energy revolution that will create millions of good jobs.

As history has shown us, necessity becomes the mother of invention. During WWII, when lumber was in short supply due to U boats in South America, the synthetic rubber industry took off. We can make the transition to clean energy now, and in doing so, become energy independent and support transitions in Europe. More natural gas infrastructure and exports is not a viable solution to the war in Ukraine and the natural gas energy crisis in Europe--clean energy is.

I invite the president, his energy cabinet and advisors to come to the Gulf Coast, to Port Arthur, Freeport, Lake Charles and see for themselves. Come visit our communities, and consider what effect his actions will have on our lives and health. Maybe then he will pursue a better, safer path forward.

President Biden, with the stroke of his pen, could use his executive authority to stop the approval of any new fossil fuel projects and declare a national climate emergency--setting us on the path to renewable energy and putting our communities' health and safety before Big Oil's agenda. We know what politicians and Big Oil are trying to do, and we must call it out. Our people, and the state of our climate and communities like Port Arthur, demand it.