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Why this Matters: It seems increasingly clear that new natural gas infrastructure is controversial. Cities are taking action to ban natural gas from new buildings, and chefs are advertising the utility of electric stoves, but more must be done. The waste and pollution from LNG production, as well as the exorbitant sunk costs for LNG export facilities, are problematic too. The federal government must under President Biden give these new permits a harder look with more transparency than in the past, and crackdown on the polluters just as promised. Otherwise, we are just digging a deeper climate hole for ourselves.
“Exports of LNG, far from being a `bridge fuel’ away from dirtier fossil fuels as the gas industry claims, will make it more difficult for both the U.S. and importing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, locking in this fossil fuel for the coming decades could make it impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” said Tina Swanson, director of the Science Center at NRDC and co-author of the report.
Take the Philadelphia Terminal that is about to be approved at the state level in what environmental advocates call a less-than-transparent process. The proposed facility will be built on a former explosives plant that is PCB-contaminated. To get fracked gas produced near Scranton to the site, it will be transported by rail or truck through densely populated parts of the Philadelphia region, then loaded on ships bound for markets abroad — an untested system. Environmental and community groups argued so far to no avail, that the permitting process at the federal and state level was rushed and that the project will have “substantial negative impacts on the Delaware River, its water quality, its habitats, and the species that live in and depend on the River, Estuary and Bay.”
Solutions
The NRDC recommends that “moving forward, FERC and DOE should acknowledge the relevance of these emissions, clearly outline which emissions fall within the purview of each agency, and capitalize on the remarkable brainpower of FERC and DOE staff to develop a test to evaluate those emissions’ significance on the environment and consistency with the public interest.”
by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer Less than two weeks after being confirmed, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has announced that the Biden administration is resuming an Obama-era program that gave billions in loans to clean energy companies. Granholm, during talks at the CERAWeek energy conference on Wednesday, pointed the clean energy businesses the Department of Energy loan program […]
by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer The world desperately needs more sources of emissions-free energy, yet as these power sources are brought online, we must also contend with their impact on animals and ecosystems. In California, government officials are trying to rescue California condors, which are critically endangered, from being killed by the blades of […]
In the wake of one of the largest power losses in United States history, the conversation about green energy in Texas is back in the headlines. Emily Holden and two other investigative reporters collaborated on a story that ran in The Guardian, The Texas Observer, and San Antonio Report exposing how the Texas Gas Service was successful in significantly watering down a plan by the city of Austin to reduce the use of natural gas there in the future.
Why This Matters: The oil industry has spent billions to manipulate the national conversation around green energy.
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