Obama no savior for LNG opponents

Fed agency slow to change, but state could stymie projects

By Christian Gaston

Pamplin Media Group, Feb 11, 2010

Chase Allgood / Pamplin Media Group

Hillary Clinton highlighted farmer and LNG opponent Anne Berblinger during Clinton’s Hillsboro campaign stop during the 2008 presidential primary. Anti-LNG activists hoped Obama’s administration would change the federal government's course on LNG policy, but so far that hasn't happened.

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When Barack Obama came into office, Oregon environmentalists hoped their long battle against proposed liquefied natural gas terminals would get a boost.

They had high expectations that Obama’s new political appointees would change the process at the federal level and slow down or stop the development of terminals designed to import super-cooled gas from abroad.

But a year into Obama’s first term, Bush administration policies designed to make it easier to build the gas terminals still stand. And the new president’s appointments to the federal agency granting approval of the terminals aren’t fully in place.

“It’s frustrating that the change just isn’t happening fast enough,” says Dan Serres, spokesman for Columbia Riverkeeper, a conservation group heavily involved in the fight.

Since 2005, activists have been fighting construction of Bradwood Landing, a proposed terminal about 25 miles east of Astoria on the Columbia River. The terminal would receive ships filled with super-cooled liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and turn it into a gas that can be piped into homes.

Bradford Landing is one of three proposed LNG terminals racing to get final approval in Oregon, along with the Jordan Cove project near Coos Bay and Oregon LNG’s project in Astoria. Industry representatives say it’s unlikely more than one of them will get built.

LNG developers say the terminals could lower the cost of energy here by facilitating cheaper imported gas. Portland-area environmentalists say a terminal at Bradwood will endanger salmon runs and that importing natural gas has a higher carbon footprint than using domestic gas.

In September 2008, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, granted preliminary approval to Bradford Landing, allowing developers to move ahead and apply for various state permits. State officials and LNG opponents complained the commission hadn’t truly assessed how much environmental damage the facility could cause, or demonstrated that it’s a needed source of energy.

FERC commissioner Jon Wellinghoff, who voted against the project back then, argued that domestic gas from the Rockies or Wyoming could feed the Pacific Northwest’s energy demand.

“These alternatives are more efficient, more reliable and environmentally preferable to the Bradwood Project,” Wellinghoff wrote at the time.

Lone opponent

When Obama appointed Wellinghoff, a Democrat, to head FERC in January 2009, LNG opponents thought he would steer the agency to their side.

But in December 2009, FERC approved a second Oregon project, Jordan Cove. Wellinghoff was the lone voice on the five-member commission opposed to the project.

“Even as chair, he seems to have little influence over how FERC approaches this,” says Mike Carrier, natural resources policy adviser for Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

State Rep. Chuck Riley, D-Hillsboro, an outspoken LNG critic, says the Obama administration isn’t doing enough to overhaul FERC, though he’s happy to see Wellinghoff in charge.

Wellinghoff has visited Oregon more than once to meet with LNG activists and state officials and see where the terminals would be built.

“We now have a chairman of FERC who’s at least listening,” Riley says.

Riley and other LNG critics are hopeful that two other Obama appointees could turn the tide.

John Norris, a Democrat from Iowa, joined FERC in December, six months after Obama nominated him to the post.

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