Environmentalists protest as Biden administration approves huge oil export terminal off Texas coast

WASHINGTON — In a move that environmentalists called treason, the Biden administration has approved construction of a deepwater oil export terminal off the coast of Texas that would be the largest of its kind in the United States.

The Sea Port Oil Terminal being developed near Freeport, Texas, will be able to load two supertankers simultaneously, with an export capacity of 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. The $1.8 billion project from Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners received a deep-water port permit this week from the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration, the latest step in a five-year federal review.

Environmentalists denounced the approval of the permit, saying it contradicted President Joe Biden’s climate agenda and would lead to “disastrous” planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to nearly 90 coal-fired power plants. The move could jeopardize Biden’s support from environmental allies and young voters already disenchanted with the Democratic administration’s approval last year of the massive Willow oil project in Alaska.

“Nothing about this project is aligned with President Biden’s climate and environmental justice goals,” said Kelsey Crane, senior policy attorney at Earthworks, an environmental group that has long opposed the export terminal.

“The communities that will be affected by (the oil terminal) have once again been ignored and will be forced to live with the threat of more oil spills, explosions and pollution,” Crane said. “The best way to protect the public and the climate from the harm of oil is to keep it in the ground.”

In a statement after the permit was approved, the Maritime Administration said the project meets a number of requirements imposed by Congress, including comprehensive environmental reviews and a federal determination that the port’s operation is in the national interest.

“As the Biden-Harris administration accelerates America’s transition to a clean energy future, it is also taking action to manage the transition in the near term,” said the agency, nicknamed MARAD.

The government’s multi-year review included consultation with at least 20 federal, state and local agencies, MARAD said. The agency ultimately determined that the project would not have a significant effect on the production or consumption of U.S. crude oil.

“While the (greenhouse gas) emissions associated with the upstream production and downstream end-use of the crude oil exported from the project may represent a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, these emissions largely already occur as part of the U.S. supply chain for crude oil. ,” the agency said in an email to The Associated Press. “Therefore, the project itself is likely to have minimal impact on current greenhouse gas emissions associated with the overall U.S. crude oil supply chain.”

Environmental groups scoff at that claim.

“The Biden administration needs to stop freaking out about fossil fuels,” said Cassidy DiPaola of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit organization that opposes the use of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

“Approving the Sea Port Oil Terminal after halting LNG exports is not only bad news for our climate, it is incoherent politics,” DiPaola said. Biden “can’t claim to be a climate leader one day and then turn around the next day and throw massive support behind the oil industry. It is time for President Biden to listen to the overwhelming majority of voters who want to see a shift away from fossil fuels, not a doubling down on dirty and deadly energy projects.”

DiPaola was referring to the administration’s announcement in January that it is postponing consideration of new natural gas export terminals in the United States, even as gas shipments to Europe and Asia have soared since Russia invaded Ukraine.

The decision, announced at the start of the 2024 presidential election year, aligned the Democratic president with environmentalists who fear that the massive increase in exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is potentially causing catastrophic emissions to warm the planet, even as Biden has promised . reduce climate pollution by half by 2030.

Industry groups and Republicans have condemned the pause, saying LNG exports stabilize global energy markets, support thousands of American jobs and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by moving countries away from coal, a much dirtier fossil fuel.

Enterprise, which produces oil, natural gas and petrochemicals, welcomed the approval of the oil project, saying the terminal will provide “a more environmentally friendly, safer, more efficient and more cost-effective way to deliver crude oil to global markets.”

Since the project was first submitted for federal review in 2019, “Enterprise has worked diligently with various federal, state, and local authorities and participated in multiple public meetings where individuals and stakeholder groups could learn about the project and provide their comments .’ “, including some studies translated into Spanish and Vietnamese, the company said in a statement. According to the US, more than half of Freeport’s 10,600 residents are Hispanic. Census Bureau.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the permit approval “a major victory for Texas’ energy industry” and said the Biden administration had delayed the seaport terminal and other projects for years.

“After the tireless work of my office and many others to secure this deepwater port permit, I am thrilled that we are helping bring more jobs to Texas and increasing energy security for America and our allies,” Cruz said in a statement. “That this victory was delayed by years of needless bureaucratic dithering shows why we need broader reforms in this country.”

The oil export facility, one of seven permit applications under review by the federal government, is located 30 miles off the coast of Brazoria County, Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The permit approval followed a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week that rejected claims by environmental groups that federal agencies had failed to enforce federal environmental laws in their review of the project.