Latest reports suggest that Joe Biden’s administration has come under renewed pressure to escalate its curbs on the US’s booming trade in fossil fuels by halting new deepwater oil-export facilities, as well as entrenching its pause in gas-export licences.
Available reports show that a coalition of 20 environmental groups, sensing election-year traction with Biden as he seeks a second term as US president, has written to officials demanding a freeze on deepwater oil-export facilities, similar to the move announced by the Biden administration earlier this year when it paused new licenses for liquified natural gas (or LNG) exports.
A letter to the US Department of Transportation asks for a re-evaluation of whether the crude oil exports are in the national interest, given they cause “disastrous climate-disrupting pollution and environmental injustices and would lock in decades of fossil fuel dependence that undercut the pathway to a clean energy economy”.
Activists are expected to press the Biden administration to indefinitely extend its pause on new LNG export licenses, citing the industry’s huge emissions and impacts upon communities and fishers along the Gulf of Mexico coast, even though the administration has indicated the pause will end within a year.
Meanwhile, a further 200 groups have called for congressional leaders to end all funding that supports fossil fuel extraction across federal lands and waters, citing the need to rapidly phase out oil, gas and coal production to avoid disastrous climate change.
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“Congress has coddled the fossil fuel industry for decades, scarring millions of acres of public lands in the process,” said Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s past time our leaders take this simple step and stop funding activities that are completely at odds with protecting our climate.”
Green groups are attempting to nudge Biden away from a conflicting dynamic in which the president has passed landmark climate legislation, and acted to slash emissions from cars, trucks and power plants, and yet has presided over an unprecedented glut in oil and gas drilling and industry profits. Last year, the US produced more oil and gas than any country has ever done in history.
A particular target is the growth of deepwater facilities in the Gulf of Mexico that export crude oil. Last month, to the fury of campaigners, the Biden administration approved a license for the Sea Port 0il terminal, a platform located 30 miles (48km) off the coast of Texas that will convey up to 2m barrels of oil each day once completed.
Three other such terminals are currently being considered, with proponents arguing they will create jobs and economic activity. The Sea Port oil terminal provides “a more environmentally friendly, safe, efficient and cost-effective way to deliver crude oil to global markets”, according to Jim Teague, co-chief executive of Enterprise, the operator of the project.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
