Making The Case Against Bradwood LNG
The fight over the Bradwood Landing LNG project enters a new phase as all sides get ready for arguments before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
No court date has been set yet. But an important deadline just passed as some of the the groups suing to stop Bradwood filed legal briefs with the court. The documents give us some new insights into why they want the appeals court to just say “no” to Bradwood Landing.
One of the major parties in the lawsuit is a coalition of environment groups, made up of Columbia Riverkeeper, Oregon Sierra Club, Landowners and Citizen for a Safe Community, Willapa Hills Audubon Society, and Wahkiakum Friends of the River. The coalition is asking the court to toss out the decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve the Bradwood Landing LNG terminal.
Here are some of the arguments made in the brief:
FERC approved the project too soon. FERC approved Bradwood in September of 2008, long before all of the environmental impacts were analyzed by other federal agencies and the state of Oregon. NOAA Fisheries, which is responsible for protecting endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River, is just now starting to study how Bradwood will affect those species. Oregon still hasn’t issued permits that are required by the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Coastal Zone Management.
Because FERC didn’t wait, the coalition says the approval, “deprives other federal and state agencies of their regulatory prerogatives and deprives the public of its right to receive essential information regarding Bradwood’s environmental effects before Bradwood was approved.”
FERC ignored Bradwood’s connection with the Palomar Pipeline. The Palomar Pipeline is a 220-mile project that will deliver the natural gas from Bradwood to the interstate pipeline system. The brief argues that the two projects are dependent on each other – that if one isn’t built then neither can be built. The coalition says FERC must consider the impacts of both projects as if they were a single project. But FERC didn’t do that.
FERC didn’t consider alternatives. Does the region really need imported natural gas? Is there enough domestic natural gas supplies to meet our needs? What about the role of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency? The coalition says FERC should have studied those issues (but didn’t) before deciding Bradwood is in the public interest.
In addition the the environmental coaltion, Oregon and the Nez Perce tribe also filed briefs asking the appeals court to overrule FERC. NOAA Fisheries is also part of the lawsuit, but hasn’t filed briefs yet. FERC has until May 4 to reply.
