Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to overseas markets is a dirty, dangerous practice that lets the industry make a killing at the expense of human health.
Why Policymakers and the Public Need Fair Disclosure Before Exports of Fracked Gas Start
While drillers continue to carve up private property and ignore basic environmental laws, the natural gas industry is pressuring local governments and coastal communities to build new pipelines and processing plants so gas can be turned into a liquid form, also known as liquefied natural gas (LNG) and shipped overseas.
Exporting natural gas would increase fracking and carbon emissions, put sensitive ecological areas at risk, and do nothing to address our country's energy challenges. Natural gas companies envision a network of winding pipelines and noisy, polluting compressors that connect the drills to the docks, slicing through wild lands, rivers, and backyards. Pipelines and gas wells will inevitably leak or rupture, risking lives and fouling the environment where people live and further polluting the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Not only that, the super-cooling process that turns fossil fuel vapor into LNG requires an immense amount of energy -- so much energy, in fact, that the LNG lifecycle is as dirty as coal. The industry wants to build enormous shipping terminals that would pave over fields, fill wetlands, and destroy estuaries.
The industry claims natural gas is the key to America’s energy independence, yet they want to export almost half of daily U.S. production, leaving our communities polluted while the gas industry profits.
Preventing these facilities from being built will dramatically decrease the pressure to drill for more gas and in turn prevent more destruction of our land and pollution of our water and air. The Sierra Club believes the Department of Energy should not authorize export facilities until a complete environmental assessment is completed and the flawed economic study is redone. Until then, the Sierra Club continues to intervene in each and every proposed LNG facility across the country.