Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ could fast-track massive expansion of Plaquemines LNG export terminal

Less than two years after opening, a liquefied natural gas terminal near New Orleans is seeking a multi-billion-dollar expansion under a new Trump administration “emergency” permitting process that shortens environmental review and may weaken protections for surrounding wetlands and waterways.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Plaquemines LNG, on the Mississippi River between Myrtle Grove and Port Sulphur, fast-tracked permitting under a “ national energy emergency ” President Donald Trump declared last year.

The agency cut the public comment period from the typical 30 days to just 10, ending July 2, and is expected to move quickly to approve the expansion, which would allow the terminal to more than double in size, growing from nearly 590 acres to about 1,220.

That would make the facility the largest LNG export terminal in North America, according to its owner, Virginia-based Venture Global.

Environmentalists warn that the terminal’s expedited review could reduce scrutiny of dredging, in-water construction, and the filling of marshlands in a region suffering from rapid land loss. By the Army Corps’ estimates, the $18 billion expansion could damage up to 470 acres of wetlands and water bottoms in central Plaquemines Parish, about 25 miles south of New Orleans.

“Louisiana is already dealing with a coastal crisis,” said Matt Rota, a senior policy director with Healthy Gulf, a New Orleans-based environmental group. “Destroying 400 more acres in Plaquemines Parish is ridiculous. I don’t know how many acres they have left, but it’s not that much.”

Plaquemines has lost more than 250 square miles of land over the past 60 years to subsidence, sea level rise and erosion. The state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority projects another 300 square miles — about half the parish’s remaining land — could disappear over the next 50 years. Much of Louisiana’s coast faces a similar threat. Since the early 1900s, nearly 2,000 square miles of the state have vanished, an area roughly the size of Delaware.

The Army Corps and Venture Global did not respond to requests for comment.

Hundreds of other energy projects could receive expedited permitting under the emergency declaration, which Trump said was necessary to maintain a “reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy” for the U.S. military and economy. Last year, the Army Corps identified more than 600 projects that could speed through the normal review process required by the Clean Water Act.

Streamlined permitting will likely accelerate the growth of an already booming LNG industry. More than 30 LNG export terminals are under construction or proposed in the U.S. Plaquemines LNG is the newest of four terminals in Louisiana, including Sabine Pass, Cameron LNG and Calcasieu Pass LNG, which is also owned by Venture.

LNG is natural gas chilled into a liquid for easier shipment overseas, where demand has surged as countries seek alternatives to coal and Russian gas.

The industry’s critics say shipping natural gas abroad conflicts with Trump’s stated rationale for declaring an energy emergency: boosting what he described as the “nation’s inadequate energy supply.”

“It’s hard to see how expanding an LNG export terminal is going to help domestic energy independence and reliability,” said Griffin Bird, a research analyst with the Environmental Integrity Project.

“This has nothing to do with energy security,” Rota said. “It sacrifices the Louisiana coast to enrich billionaires.”

Of the 833 billion cubic feet of gas exported from Plaquemines LNG last year, most went to Europe, with Germany receiving the largest share, at 19%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The terminal is one of Louisiana’s largest industrial facilities, with 1.3 miles of river frontage, three ship berths, two gas-fired power plants, and nearly 30 miles of natural gas pipeline.

It’s also one of the state’s biggest polluters. Plaquemines LNG is permitted to release about 8.1 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases per year, according to company records. That’s equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1.7 million gas-powered vehicles.

The only industrial facility in Louisiana that emits more than Plaquemines LNG is CF Industries, an ammonia producer in Donaldsonville that released about 10.4 million tons of greenhouse gases in 2023, the latest year available in the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

Those emissions, along with the carbon dioxide released when the LNG is burned for energy overseas, contribute to climate change, which is accelerating sea level rise and intensifying the storms that drive land loss in Plaquemines, Rota said.

“Burning more natural gas means we lose Plaquemines Parish even faster,” he said.

The terminal’s expansion would increase its production capacity from about 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas per year to around 2.3 trillion.

It’s unclear how the expansion will affect emissions, but federal filings indicate the larger facility could produce at least 9 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. Venture plans to use carbon capture and sequestration technology to inject a portion of the terminal’s carbon dioxide underground.

Some Louisiana leaders welcome the expansion, saying it will spur economic activity and create jobs.

U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Jefferson Parish Republican, celebrated the rapid development of the Plaquemines site.

“This was a cow pasture four or five years ago,” he told reporters during a tour of the facility in April. “Now it’s the most modern, the most efficient, the largest LNG export facility in the world, and they’re building another one just like it next door.”

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This story was originally published by Verite News and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.