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Tuesday is the deadline for public comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements for Rio Grande LNG and the associated Rio Bravo Pipeline, and Texas LNG at the Port of Brownsville.
Specifically, FERC is gathering input from the public and relevant regulatory agencies on environmental justice impacts association with the construction and operation of the Rio Grande LNG Terminal and the Rio Bravo Pipeline Project; air quality impacts resulting from construction and operational emissions; and “alternatives for the Rio Grande LNG terminal, including carbon capture and sequestration.”
FERC is conducting the Supplemental EIS’s after the D.C. Circuit Court vacated the agency’s authorizations for the three projects. The ruling, handed down Aug. 6, was in response to a lawsuit against FERC by the Sierra Club, the city of Port Isabel and other petitioners, who alleged that FERC authorized the projects without adequately considering environmental justice impacts and greenhouse gas emissions of the three projects as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Natural Gas Act.
The public comment period began Sept. 17. FERC will consider the input gathered in deciding whether to reauthorize some or all of the three projects. Construction of Rio Grande LNG, on 984 acres along the Brownsville Ship Channel, began a year ago. The Rio Bravo Pipeline would supply natural gas to the facility from the Agua Dulce gas hub, about 30 miles west of Corpus Christi, where it would be super chilled, to shrink its volume, and loaded aboard LNG container vessels for export to foreign customers.
Texas LNG, a much smaller export terminal project proposed for the port, has not broken ground. The company was nearing a Final Investment Decision to move forward with construction before the D.C. court’s Aug. 6 ruling.
On Aug. 20, Rio Grande LNG withdrew its FERC application for a carbon capture sequestration (CCS) facility at the facility. The agency said it suspended its review of the CCS application last year because Rio Grande LNG had not provided “detailed plans for the facility to (FERC) and the public.”
Top officials with Cameron County, the city of Brownsville, cities across the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo condemned the D.C. court ruling and expressed support for the LNG projects in recent weeks, arguing that the jobs — especially the thousands of jobs associated with construction — would greatly benefit the regional economy.
Environmentalist and other LNG foes have fought the projects since they were first proposed more than a decade ago over concerns about the environment, quality of life, commercial fishing and tourism.
Public comments for the Supplemental EIS’s must be received by 4 p.m. Central time on Tuesday for them to be properly recorded, FERC said.
The project dockets are CP16-454-000, CP16-455-000 and CP20-481-000 for the Rio Grande LNG and Rio Bravo Pipeline projects, and CP16-116-000 for the Texas LNG project.
For information on how to submit comments, commenting methods and the FERC environmental review process, go here: www.ferc.gov/cameron-county-projects.
