Valley activists wage transatlantic battle to stop natural gas exports from South Texas – By Aaron Cantu (Capital & Main) / April 12, 2024
As legal efforts fall short, Rio Grande Valley residents are pursuing a novel strategy to halt export terminals on wetlands: Lobby Europeans to reject gas from the U.S.
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The nonprofit publication Capital & Main produced this article. It is co-published with permission.
In the Rio Grande Valley along the U.S.-Mexico border, residents are battling to preserve some of the last pristine wetlands on the Texas coast. They had won some victories against businesses building terminals to ship millions of tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG), an atmosphere-heating fossil fuel, to Europe and Asia from Brownsville.
A scrappy group of activists whose families have lived in the area for centuries delayed construction as locals urged regulators to reject the terminals. Following legal action brought by the Sierra Club and other South Texas groups, a federal agency reassessed the potential environmental impacts of the projects. And the activists, through a sophisticated strategy of teaming up with European allies, persuaded key financial backers to withdraw support.
But the terminal projects are moving forward, picking up momentum as the U.S. and Europe seek energy security following the disruption to gas supplies caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One terminal received permission from federal regulators to construct a levee and an offloading facility. The other has all state and federal permits, but has yet to break ground.
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