The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a plan for Kinder Morgan’s $1.1 billion Gulf LNG liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Pascagoula, Mississippi to begin exporting natural gas upon completion of necessary alterations.
Kinder Morgan completed the Gulf LNG plant as an import terminal in 2011, but with record production of natural gas from U.S. shale as a result of fracking, the company filed a July 2015 application with FERC to develop part of the plant as an export terminal instead.
LNG Approval Trend
The Pascagoula plant is the fifth LNG export project FERC has approved in 2019, reducing a backlog of applications that developed when Barack Obama was president.
Developers are pushing to build even more new export terminals to accommodate the increased global demand for natural gas in the face of limited storage capacity for the large amounts of natural gas realized by the U.S. shale boom.
Upon completion, the Gulf LNG plant will be capable of exporting 1.53 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. In addition to two liquefaction plants, the project will modify an existing Gulf LNG Pipeline to allow for bidirectional flow.
The Gulf LNG plant is good for America’s economy and its national security interests, said FERC Chairman Neil Chaterjee in a press release.
“This is big news for the United States and our allies,” said Chaterjee. “Today’s approval of #GulfLNG is significant for the economy and America’s geopolitical interests.”
‘Only Want Power’
FERC’s approval of the Gulf LNG export project came despite opposition from environmental activists claiming to be concerned about its impact on climate change.
Jay Lehr, Ph.D., a senior policy analyst with the International Climate Science Coalition, says Democrats’ efforts to derail the terminal show they are not really concerned about climate change.
“Democrats have attempted to kill the project over their supposed concerns about its climate impact, yet the climate does not benefit from blocking LNG projects,” said Lehr. “Humans aren’t causing climate change, but if you are concerned about greenhouse gases, the United States’ expanded use natural gas has accompanied the largest decrease in greenhouse gas emissions of any nation in the world.
“For years, intelligent people have tried to build import terminals against the wishes of environmental activists,” said Lehr. “When shale gas got big, it was intelligent to build export terminals, which created thousands of jobs and helped the U.S. economy.”
Lehr says politicians’ true goal in hampering LNG exports is to expand government control over the economy.
“Many Democrats are not really concerned about the climate,” said Lehr. “They only want power and to stop our nation’s abundant fossil fuel development so they can force people to be dependent on their preferred wind and solar projects, which only operate because they tax us to subsidize them.
“Democrats’ real goal is to replace capitalism with socialism, as the recent Democrat debates proved,” Lehr said.
Kenneth Artz ([email protected]) writes from Dallas, Texas.
Artz has more than 20 years’ experience in nonprofit organizations, publishing, newspaper reporting, and public policy advocacy.
