Citizen Groups Object to Potential for LNG Export From Proposed Terminals

Citizen groups opposing LNG terminals and pipelines in Oregon reacted today to an announcement that Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana will seek to liquefy and export domestic U.S. gas. For years, conservationists, landowners, and ratepayer advocates have warned that similar proposed terminals in Oregon, including Oregon LNG, Jordan Cove, and the now bankrupt Bradwood Landing, could be converted to export projects, which would force Oregon energy consumers to compete with high-priced Asian markets.
Today's announcement by Cheniere, owner of the Sabine Pass LNG import project that became operational in 2008, provides evidence that LNG projects in Oregon could ultimately be used to export U.S. gas supplies.
According to Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, The threat of exporting LNG from Oregon is a real possibility. LNG terminals would not only destroy salmon habitat, but shipping our gas overseas weakens our energy security and may increase our gas bills. Exporting makes a bad idea worse.
Olivia Schmidt with Oregon Sierra Club stated, Oregonians oppose LNG projects, including the proposed bi-directional Palomar pipeline over Mt. Hood that could be used to export as well as import LNG. We?re not willing to see our farms, forests, and rivers decimated for LNG.
Conservation groups have not been alone in their concern about the potential for LNG export. In March, Oregon Citizen?s Utility Board (CUB) specifically cited the potential for LNG export as a risk to Oregon ratepayers because it would drive up prices towards higher levels seen in overseas markets. Additionally, Senator Merkley proposed an amendment to a budget bill in summer 2009 that would have restricted LNG exports out of concern that LNG proponents were planning to turn their terminals into export facilities.
Columbia Riverkeeper, Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club and others asked the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider the impacts of exporting LNG before FERC approved the LNG import terminals.? In an October 20, 2008 Request for Rehearing, the groups stated:
FERC also failed to disclose or evaluate the impacts of Bradwood Landing becoming an LNG export terminal in the future. . . . After the pipeline infrastructure in built under the guise of an import terminal, gas could easily flow from the Rockies to an export terminal on Oregon's coast. If so, American consumers would be competing for gas on a world market and potentially have to pay radically higher prices to compete.
CUB's statement regarding LNG in Oregon is available on its website: http://oregoncub.org/archives/2010/03/all_new_energy_1.php.