The Sierra Club and several other opponents of three proposed liquefied natural gas export terminals at the Port of Brownsville are asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider permits that the agency recently awarded for the controversial projects.
Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer
In three separate Christmas Eve filings, the Sierra Club and other opponents of Rio Grande LNG, Annova LNG and Texas LNG asked for a rehearing on the agency’s Nov. 21 decision that gave permits to all three projects.
Opponents argue that FERC commissioners failed to take a hard look at the impacts the projects would have on other industries in the region, air pollution, water quality, endangered species, a historic Native American site, neighbors living near the proposed plants and the impacts the export terminals could potentially have on climate change.
Located just a few miles north of the U.S./Mexico border, the three Brownsville projects would receive natural gas via pipeline from the Permian Basin of West Texas and other shale plays across the United States that would be supercooled into a liquid form and shipped aboard massive tankers to customers around the world. If they land contracts and receive financing, the three projects represent more than $38 billion of private investment, thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of high-paying permanent jobs in one of the poorest regions of the United States.
Sierra Club was joined in all three requests by the Defenders of Wildlife, the City of South Padre Island, the City of Port Isabel, the Town of Laguna Vista, the Save RGV From LNG coalition and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which is working on behalf of the community groups Shrimpers and Fisherman of the RGV and Vecinos para el Bienestar de la Comunidad Costera, or Neighbors for the Well-Being of the Coastal Community.
Gilberto Hinojosa, a Brownsville attorney who represents the City of Port Isabel and serves as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, and his wife Cynthia Hinojosa joined opponents as landowners in rehearing request for Rio Grande LNG and the related Rio Bravo Pipeline.
By Sergio Chapa
