Opposing LNG Cabrillo Port

[sexypierce]

Ive watched all 3 and you dont get to see Pierce at all really, just a quick blurred glimpse when Martin Sheen thanks The Brosnans.

[sparklingblue]

Aww, that's too bad, Kelly. I had hoped it contained more Pierce to make us all happy. But thanks for letting us know.

[Ace]

From the Associated Press:

Environmentalists Cheer Pipeline Vote

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, April 10, 2007
(04-10) 03:27 PDT Oxnard, Calif. (AP) --

An energy company was dealt a serious blow to its efforts to build a floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the Southern California coast when a state panel refused to grant a lease for pipelines essential to the project.

The 2-1 decision by the State Lands Commission late Monday was met with loud cheers by an estimated 900 people who packed an auditorium for the hearing. Many had spent the day rallying against the proposal and wore blue T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Terminate the Terminal."

"We're ecstatic," said Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network, which provided the shirts and helped organize the opponents. "This effectively kills it."

Patrick Cassidy, a spokesman for the terminal backers, Australia's BHP Billiton LNG International Inc., said the vote was disappointing but the company remains "committed to the process."

Monday's hearing was perhaps the most important in a series that will decide the fate of the terminal that would be built in the ocean northwest of Los Angeles, about 14 miles off Malibu and about 20 miles off Oxnard.

Under the $800 million project, chilled gas brought overseas by tanker would be heated, then piped ashore through two 24-inch diameter lines. From there, Southern California Gas Co. would pump it out to consumers. In all, the facility would process about 800 million cubic feet of natural gas every day.

BHP officials have said the terminal would supply an amount equal to 10 to 15 percent of California's daily consumption, bringing more reliability to the state's energy sources, and could ultimately lower prices. The company has said it hopes to get some of its gas supplies from an offshore gas field in Australia it operates with Exxon Mobil Corp.

Environmentalists, however, say there is no guarantee the project would be more reliable or lower prices because the gas could also be sold to other states.

Opponents also have argued the terminal would not meet clean air requirements and could be a terrorist target. A host of celebrities who live in Malibu, including Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry, have protested the proposal.

The plan called for sub-sea lines, which would be laid about 100 feet apart, to be about 23 miles long but only cross about 4 1/2 miles of California land before reaching Ormond Beach in Ventura County.

Without the sub-sea pipelines, the terminal would essentially be inoperable.

The lone panelist who supported the proposal, Anne Sheehan, contended the project would help meet rising energy demand in California.

"I think for the future of the state and the energy needs, we've got to move it forward," said Sheehan, who represents state Finance Director Michael Genest, a Cabinet member to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Commission Chairman John Garamendi, who is also the lieutenant governor, said he voted against awarding the lease permit because "serious questions remain about the project's safety and its potential impact on the environment."

Schwarzenegger has veto power over the project, but cannot overturn the commission's decision about the pipeline lease. He has not made a decision on what he'd do should the project move forward.

"It would be inappropriate for me to take a position on any application before the review process is complete, but I do believe that liquefied natural gas should be a part of California's energy portfolio," Schwarzenegger said in a statement Monday.

[Ace]

Malibu Surfside News: Cabrillo Port Dealt Major Blow by State Lands Commission

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

• Panel Votes 2 to 1 to Deny Subsea Pipelines for Controversial Offshore LNG Project •

BY HANS LAETZ


Cabrillo Port is dead. Maybe.

By a 2-1 vote late Monday night, the California State Lands Commission rejected the application by Australian energy conglomerate BHP Billiton to build a $1 billion floating liquefied natural gas terminal some 13.8 miles off the coast of Malibu.

The vote cannot be appealed to any state agency. But BHP Billiton could file a lawsuit; something that officials on both sides said would be a voyage into uncharted legal waters.

And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement late Monday vowing to continue to investigate whether Cabrillo Port should be approved, as the convoluted set of federal laws governing the issue does not legally stop the application process even though the project right now does not have permission to lay its pipes across state tidelands, and thus has no way to transfer its gas ashore.

The governor also said it would be premature for him to announce any decision on Cabrillo Port at this time.

Monday’s vote was unquestionably a significant victory for coastal advocates and environmentalists from Malibu, Oxnard and Port Hueneme, the cities nearest the proposed LNG terminal.

“This shows that the commission cares about far beyond the stars in Malibu, and that they were thinking globally,” said Malibu activist Keely Shaye-Brosnan.

“We’re just digesting this thing, and we’ll have a statement tomorrow,” said Patrick E. Cassidy, the company’s Houston vice president for communications. “We remain committed to this process.”

That process may mean a lawsuit, which is the only recourse for BHP Billiton, which would stand to profit by $50 billion by some estimates over the 40-year-life of the project. Numerous calls to BHPB officials went unreturned Tuesday morning.

“Let them sue,” said California Coastal Protection Network director Susan Jordan. “We knew all along, since 2004, that this project could not meet the Clean Air Act. The company knew that too, and they should have adjusted.”

Commission chairman John Garamendi, the state’s lieutenant governor, and John Chiang, provided the two-vote majority, with a representative for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger casting the lone affirmative ballot.

Anne Sheehan, the deputy director of finance representing the governor’s office on the commission, said Cabrillo Port would bring California a necessary “bridge fuel” as it weans itself from coal and oil-fired energy sources. But the other two panelists, both Democrats, pointed out that the project would not come on line until 2012 at the earliest.

“This project does not fulfill an immediate need,” Garamendi said at the end of a grueling 12-hour public hearing that allowed more than 130 people to testify.

Garamendi said the project’s environmental studies proposed 18 alternatives, “and rejected every one of those 18 alternatives out of hand without considering them.”

But it was the project’s air pollution impact that troubled Garamendi and Chiang the most. “This isn’t going to clean the air in the immediate area of the project,” Chiang said.

“I also have serious reservations about locating an LNG plant along our beautiful California coast,” he said. “There are also clear threats to marine life and human safety.”

The vote was greeted by polite whoops and hollers from the crowd of 800 people in the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, a crowd that had been warned several times by Garamendi not to applaud or make comments—at the threat of expulsion.

The hearing was punctuated by a large late afternoon rally outside the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, where Oxnard Police estimated 2000 persons listened to speeches. Parking spaces within blocks of the Arts Center were taken, leading many Malibu residents to circle the area in their cars, horns honking.

When the rally ended, a large number of participants shuffled into the hall, but as most of the 800 seats were already taken, Garamendi sternly ordered the aisles cleared.

At one point in the evening, opponents of the project were asked to stand and raise their hands: nearly every person in the 800-seat auditorium stood up in a quiet show of force.

Garamendi then asked them to be seated, and for project backers to stand up. Seven people rose to their feet.

Much of the testimony plowed familiar ground. Christine Rodgerson, president of the Malibu Association of Realtors, told the commissioners, “I am concerned that this project has a negative impact on property values.” She said, “One of the main reasons why people move to Malibu is for the clean air.”

John Mazza, representing the Malibu Township Council, said the BHP Billiton project “has gathered the most interest since a company tried to put a nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone in Malibu—and that was 37 years ago.”

By the hearing’s end, a rough tally showed 16 speakers favoring the terminal, and 111 opposed.

Project supporters said the project would bring a badly needed, clean-burning fuel that can replace coal-fired electricity in the state’s grid. “We need to find some other source for this energy, and if not from this project, where?” asked Will Reed, spokesman for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“I don’t think this is about environmental issues, and I don’t think this is about fish,” said Donna Worley, a Burbank resident. “I think this is about of rich people down in Malibu who don’t want to see this thing in their ocean views, and these people have spent a lot of money to scare you to death.”

The bad news started early for BHP Billiton. Garamendi began the hearing with a series of blistering questions to the State Lands Commission staff and the company’s attorney-lobbyist Craig Meyer.

In a rapid-fire set of terse questions, Garamendi asked if the project’s impact report included greenhouse gas emissions for the entire trans-Pacific supply chain, estimated by one scientist at 66 times greater than the amount of emissions at the unloading terminal alone.

“Those emissions are not within this project, because if the gas were not to come here, it would be going to somewhere else,” the company’s attorney said.

A skeptical Garamendi interrupted: “Then we are not to be concerned about the greenhouse gas issue?”

Garamendi and Chiang also peppered SLC staff with questions about the report’s reliance on four-year-old data on the state’s natural gas needs, and said the foundation for the needs assessment is faulty.

Commissioners also said they were unhappy with BHP Billiton’s effort to mitigate the emissions of nitrogen pollution by rebuilding the engines of a pair of tugboats plying the waters between San Pedro and San Francisco.

Garamendi noted that the contract for the tugboats lasts 15 years, and the project will be releasing hundreds of tons of smog upwind of Malibu and Ventura County for 40 years or more.

Garamendi criticized Billiton for saying in its application that it had plans to sell the natural gas in California, when the company’s spokesman said it would be shipped through California to “points beyond.”

“Is that in the EIR?” Garamendi asked. “It’s not, but it seems to be an important point. How much gas is to be imported through Mexico? The EIR does not say that either.”

BHP LNG International President Renee Klimczak ended the marathon public hearing with a reminder of the company’s main contention that “without natural gas you will not be able to replace coal for electric generation, and natural gas is a very efficient fuel for vehicles.”

The commission’s executive director, Paul Thayer, told the commission there are negative impacts that cannot be mitigated in any way. “For example, the chance for a catastrophic event is fairly remote, but that is kind of like rabies—chances are low of getting that, but once you do, it is fairly drastic.”

Although Monday’s hearing may end up fatally derailing Cabrillo Port, state and federal laws require the application process to continue to proceed on a parallel track. That means the California Coastal Commission will still hold its daylong hearing on the project Thursday in Santa Barbara, and its action remains an important component of this process.

The governor has until May 21 to take a formal position as well. His position would be critical if Billiton files a legal appeal and is successful in court.

Still shying from a formal stance on Cabrillo Port, Schwarzenegger said in a statement after Monday’s vote, “I do believe that liquefied natural gas should be a part of California’s energy portfolio.”

The governor added, “Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and an LNG facility to serve our state would make California less vulnerable to variations in supply and price. Despite the action taken today by the State Lands Commission, my office, pursuant to federal law, is using the allotted 45-day review period to make sure that the project meets strict standards of public and environmental safety.”

The Thursday Coastal Commission hearing starts at 10 a.m. at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort, 633 E. Cabrillo St., Santa Barbara. It will be webcast live by the commission at its website: www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html .

[sparklingblue]

This looks like a small victory. I'm glad and hope it will continue to be that way.

Thinking nowadays we can replace one fossil fuel by another until everything is exhausted is beyond naive.

[Ace]

Malibu Surside News:
Coastal Commission Casts Unanimous No Vote on Cabrillo Port

News Alert 04.12.2007

•BHP Billiton Takes the Fifth as Opponents Blast Project at Hearing in Santa Barbara•

By Hans Laetz


BHP Billiton placed a high stakes bet Thursday when it told the California Coastal Commission it would sit silently and refuse to present its case that the proposed $1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal complies with state coastal laws.

It lost. In a unanimous 12-0 vote, the commission ruled today that Cabrillo Port does not comply with federal and California environmental laws, and sent the Australian company adrift in a sea of confusion over the offshore LNG facility’s future.

“Is this dead? I think it is mortally wounded,” said California Coastal Protection Network executive director Susan Jordan.

BHP Billiton went into the meeting in Santa Barbara desperately trying to win a delay in the hearing, based on the Monday night decision by the California State Lands Commission to reject the controversial project’s environmental impact report and lease.

The company’s silence did not go over well with several commission members. “It’s annoying that we put our staff through this and then the applicant chose not to respond at the hearing,” said Mary Shallenberger before she voted against it.

Another commissioner said the company’s silence “points to a certain tendency on behalf of BHP to provide less information rather than more.” Ben Hueso said, “If BHP wants to do business in the United States, they need to learn to provide more information and act responsibly. We feel very protective of our coastline.”

Legal experts said the company’s only alternative at this point is to file an eleventh hour lawsuit aimed at overturning the environmental decision, a suit that they said would be all but impossible to win.

But a company spokesman said no decision has been made yet on taking legal action.

“We still are digesting the comments made Monday and today, and it’s way too early for us to speculate on what steps we can take,” said company spokesman Patrick Cassidy.

The Coastal Commission vote can be overturned by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. But after Monday’s State Lands Commission decision, the Cabrillo Port initiative appears dead in the water.

BHP LNG International President Renee Klimczak had told the Coastal Commission at the start of the hearing that the company would not state its case on why it should win permission to build its Cabrillo Port LNG terminal 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast.

Klimczak sat in the audience for most of the eight-hour session, and refused repeated offers from the commission to testify or rebut what was said by the 40 persons who spoke against the project. Not one person testified in its favor.

“We came here to listen to what people are saying,” said BHP spokesman Patrick Cassidy after the unanimous defeat of a project in which his company had invested four years and tens of millions of dollars. As to the possibility of a lawsuit, Cassidy would not deviate from a written press statement that the company would evaluate its options.

That’s been the company line since the stern rejection of Cabrillo Port by a 2-1 majority of the State Lands panel. That action sent to the recycling heap the 3000-page Cabrillo Port environmental impact study written over the past three years that said the project violated environmental laws in at least 20 areas.

State Lands also refused to allow the company to lay its pipelines across state-owned tidelands at Ormond Beach, Oxnard. That action effectively killed the project’s federal permit.

But laws require the parallel state application process to continue on a mandated fast track. Company lawyers spent the last two days trying to convince state and federal agencies to postpone the Thursday commission hearing on that parallel state permit.

CCC executive director Peter Douglas said federal law does not allow anyone to delay the hearing for any reason, and the only way BHP Billiton could stop proceedings was to withdraw its 2003 application and scrap nearly fours years and tens of millions of dollars in efforts. BHP did not want to do this.

“We realize this puts the commission in an embarrassing position, but that is the path they chose,” Douglas said.

The project, although legally killed in the eyes of the federal government, must still proceed through the state approval process, which also calls for a decision on the state permit by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“The governor needs to step in here with a clear message,” CCPN’s Jordan said, “and veto Cabrillo Port.”

The governor was in Washington Thursday, and, in a news conference there, backed away from his earlier support of LNG as a greenhouse gas reducing bridge fuel.

“[LNG] is one of those things where you don’t want to go and protect on the one side, the environment, and have less greenhouse gas emissions, and then on the other hand, you create more,” the governor told the San Francisco Chronicle political blog.

For the third daylong meeting in eight days, Malibu was represented by Councilmembers Pamela Conley Ulich and Andy Stern. Conley Ulich blasted BHP Billiton officials for trying to delay the matter and asked, “Where are they speaking…behind closed doors?” She said, “I’d like to hear from them here at this meeting, in public, and [have them] explain to us just what exactly it is they intend to do now.”

Stern concentrated on the lack of solid evidence that more natural gas is needed in California, or that prices would drop if Cabrillo Port were to be built.

Malibu actor Pierce Brosnan sat through four hours of testimony before he spoke. The actor used his two minutes to again call on Schwarzenegger to reject Cabrillo Port in the spirit of his environmentalist credentials. “I know our governor has worked hard to reduce global greenhouse gases, and to sign AB 32,” Brosnan said.

“I would like to note that the terminator may be doing his job globally, but Agent 007 is doing it locally,” quipped Commissioner Khatchik Achadjian.”

Remy O’Neill, representing the Malibu Township Council, said the U.S. is behind developing countries on some environmental issues and cannot afford to add greenhouse gas to the globe. “We are even behind China in our vehicle emissions standards. For people at these hearings, air pollution mitigation doesn’t mean let’s make a deal. It means don’t add more pollution.”

Ironically, CCC executive director Peter Douglas revealed early in the meeting that he and BHP officials were close to solving a major smog problem that helped derail Cabrillo Port at the Lands Commission: the tremendous amount of greenhouse gas that the project would generate in the extraction, liquefaction, transport and reheating of natural gas.

One scientific expert at Thursday’s hearing estimated the project would emit an amount equal to 40 percent of the greenhouse gas now being emitted by the people and businesses of New York City.

But Douglas said BHP Billiton and the state were near agreement on converting the entire trans-Pacific LNG fleet to complete natural gas operations.

“We did talk to BHP about running their tankers on natural gas [exclusively], and I thought they had agreed to do that,” Douglas said. “But given the turn of events in the last couple of days, we never got back to that issue.”

================================================

LA Times: Coastal panel rejects natural gas terminal

Commissioners say the project poses too much risk to the coast between Malibu and Ventura. It's the second setback for the plan in four days.

By Gary Polakovic, Times Staff Writer

April 13, 2007

In another blow to a huge natural gas terminal proposed off Southern California, a state commission rejected the project Thursday after concluding that it posed an unacceptable risk to the coast between Malibu and Ventura.

The California Coastal Commission unanimously decided that the project failed to meet rigorous coastal protection standards.

The commissioners concluded that the processing plant — proposed to be moored about 20 miles off Malibu — would damage marine mammals, ocean views and birds near Channel Islands National Park, and contribute to smog and global warming.

Further, the commissioners, echoing concerns of coastal residents, sharply criticized the company proposing the project, Australia energy and mining giant BHP Billiton.

"If we don't feel that BHP has its heart in this, and you look at it as merely profit, it's not in our coast's best interest to have the project," said Commissioner Ben Hueso, a San Diego councilman.

But the decision is expected to be challenged. BHP Billiton officials said they would consider their next move over the next few days. The company has 30 days to appeal to U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

The day before the hearing, BHP Billiton tried to prevent the commission from reviewing the project and also urged the federal Maritime Administration to halt an ongoing federal review of the project.

"California needs natural gas to meet its future energy and environmental needs. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel," Renee Klimczak, president of BHP Billiton LNG International Inc., told the commission.

Despite the company's request, the commission proceeded with the hearing because the company's federal application to build the plant remains valid.

Further, a decision on the project cannot be delayed because a key hearing last week before the U.S. Coast Guard triggered a clock under which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must render a decision on the terminal by May 21.

About 500 people attended the all-day hearing Thursday in Santa Barbara. It was the third hearing on the project in the last eight days.

The company seeks to build an $800-million offshore plant that would process about 800 million cubic feet of liquefied natural gas daily. Tankers would bring the super-chilled fuel from Australia and possibly Asia. The fuel would then be processed on the floating factory before being shipped to Oxnard.

But the Coastal Commission's 12-0 decision was a major blow to the plan. It is the second time in four days that a state agency has rejected the project.

On Monday, the California Lands Commission, which has jurisdiction over the pipelines, concluded that the environmental impact report was seriously flawed and refused to issue the company a lease. That decision cannot be challenged, except in court, and the governor cannot overturn it.

The company has spent nearly four years and tens of millions of dollars on studies and lobbying to build its project, called Cabrillo Port, which would be 14 miles offshore from the point where Ventura and Los Angeles counties meet.

During three key public hearings since last Thursday, hundreds of opponents — from students to biologists to movie stars — blasted the proposal.

The coastal commissioners overwhelmingly challenged the need for the natural gas terminal and ripped the 3,000-page environmental impact report on which it is based.

Commissioner Sara Wan of Malibu called the environmental review "highly deficient" and said the project would imperil migratory whales, marine birds and other sea life. She said underwater noise from the project would exceed 120 decibels for 390 square miles. She said the company failed to identify ways to prevent whales from being struck by ships and said there was "no mitigation, period" to protect endangered birds from bright lights.

Commissioner Mary Shallenberger said the company had failed to demonstrate "maximum feasible" controls to reduce greenhouse gases from its project.

Coastal Commission staff had requested that the company use natural gas to power its 11 Cabrillo Port ships across the Pacific Ocean, but the company had refused.

The commission staff estimated that the project would produce the equivalent of 23 million tons of carbon dioxide per year — 40% of the amount emitted by New York City. It is the first time the Coastal Commission has examined global-warming gases when considering a project.

Many commissioners worried that the project would emit too much air pollution. Cabrillo Port and its vessels would release about 219 tons of smog-forming emissions annually upwind of Los Angeles and Ventura counties — two of the smoggiest places in the nation. The commission's staff contended that the company failed to adequately control emissions and instead won an exemption from the Clean Air Act that allowed it to skirt stringent measures that businesses ashore must meet.

Actor Pierce Brosnan, a Malibu resident, said public comments and votes by the regulatory agencies were sending a message to the governor.

"The Lands Commission has spoken, the Coastal Commission has spoken, and the public has spoken. It's time for the governor to listen and say goodbye to LNG and send [Billiton] home," Brosnan said.

Klimczak on Thursday said the company needed more time to digest the week's events and plan its next steps.

"We appreciate the commission's comments today, and we are continuing to review our options at this time," Klimczak said.

[Ace]

Bloomberg: Schwarzenegger Rejects BHP Billiton's LNG Proposal

By Greg Chang

May 18 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected BHP Billiton Ltd.'s proposed $800 million natural gas-import facility because it would harm the environment.

He echoed comments by the California Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission, which both turned down the proposal for off the coast of Southern California last month. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said the state does need additional gas supplies.

The governor's decision, announced today in an e-mailed statement, may terminate Melbourne-based BHP's more than three- year pursuit for approval of the project. The facility would process liquefied natural gas, or LNG.

``Liquefied natural gas can and must be an important addition to California's energy portfolio,'' Schwarzenegger said. ``However, any LNG import facility must meet the strict environmental standards California demands.''

BHP Billiton, Australia's largest oil producer, had proposed a facility off the coast of Ventura County that would be capable of handling enough gas to satisfy about 10 percent of California's demand.

``This one is over and done,'' Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network in Santa Barbara, a leading proposal opponent, said in a phone interview. ``If BHP wants to come in with a different kind of project, that's up to them, but the one they had proposed was clearly not appropriate.''

If Schwarzenegger had approved the project, it likely would have encouraged BHP Billiton to take legal action to overturn the decisions by the state commissions, she said.

`Safe, Reliable'

Schwarzenegger can veto the project based on a federal law that governs offshore developments. The State Lands Commission earlier rejected a BHP application for a lease of state property for a planned pipeline, while the Coastal Commission said the proposed facility would harm air quality and marine life.

``We respect but are disappointed with the governor's decision,'' BHP spokesman Patrick Cassidy said in a telephone interview from Houston. ``For the past four years, BHP has worked cooperatively with state and federal officials'' to ``design and redesign'' the proposal.

The company will ``take some time'' to consider its next steps, he said.

Celebrities such as actor Pierce Brosnan also opposed the plant. They said it would cause excessive pollution and endanger wildlife and residents.

Flurry of Proposals

Cabrillo Port, first unveiled in August 2003, was one of a flurry of LNG investment proposals amid expectations that demand for gas will exceed North American supplies. LNG imports are expected to climb to 4.5 trillion cubic feet in 2030, or 17.4 percent of supply, from 0.6 trillion cubic feet in 2005, or 2.6 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

California, the nation's most populous state, has been seen by investors as fertile ground for LNG because less than 15 percent of the state's gas is produced within its borders. California has also embraced gas as a power-plant fuel because it generates less pollution than fuels such as coal.

``California needs LNG,'' Schwarzenegger said today. ``California faces significant challenges in ensuring adequate natural-gas supplies.''

He said he ``strongly supports'' the construction of an LNG facility off the coast of California.

LNG is chilled to a liquid so it can be transported over long distances by ship to its destination, where the fuel is reconverted to its gaseous form and used to heat homes and generate electricity.

Local Opposition

Some opponents of Cabrillo Port disagreed with the governor about the need for LNG.

``This is a good time for all of us to step back and assess whether any LNG is necessary anywhere on the West Coast,'' said Rory Cox, California program director with San Francisco-based Pacific Environment. ``I don't believe California needs it.''

Other companies working on LNG plans in California include Woodside Petroleum Ltd. and Northernstar Natural Gas Inc. The port of Long Beach in Southern California in January voted to block a facility proposed by ConocoPhillips and Mitsubishi Co.

``If folks would divorce themselves from the fear-mongering and look at the need for natural gas in California, these projects would move forward,'' said Bill Cooper, executive director for the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas in Washington, in a telephone interview.

Texas and Louisiana have proven more receptive to such projects. Four U.S. LNG plants are being developed along the Gulf Coast in those states by companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, Sempra Energy and Cheniere Energy Inc. Sempra is also building a plant in the Baja California region of Mexico.

Cooling Investments

There are more than 50 projects in the planning stages in North America and Mexico, according to consultants Benjamin Schlesinger & Associates Inc. in Bethesda, Maryland. Investments have cooled amid concerns that delays in the construction of facilities that liquefy gas will cause a shortage of LNG.

``Unfortunately, the supply of LNG around the world is not as plentiful as one would have thought,'' ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Jim Mulva said at the company's annual meeting on May 9. ``The amount of LNG coming into the U.S. is going to be less, and it's going to be deferred into the future.''

There are five operating LNG-import facilities in the U.S. They are owned by companies including Dominion Resources Inc., El Paso Corp. and Southern Union Co.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Chang in San Francisco at [e-mail]
Last Updated: May 18, 2007 19:17 EDT

[Ace]

From PB.com


May 18, 2006

Statement from Keely and Pierce regarding the BHP LNG Terminal proposal:

We are deeply gratified that Governor Schwarzenegger has taken to heart the concerns of thousands of residents, numerous national, state and local organizations as well as elected officials, and vetoed the BHP Billiton LNG Terminal proposal.

During the last year, as we worked closely with our community and public officials to stop the approval of BHP’s LNG terminal that was to be built off the coast of Oxnard and Malibu, we spoke with hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds. Not one of them told us that they wanted this LNG terminal built. What they did tell us was that California needed to find a better and cleaner way to meet its energy needs.

Through researching BHP’s LNG terminal proposal, we realized that Liquefied Natural Gas is an issue with far reaching, and long-lasting implications for the world we live in. What we do in CA and around the globe will not only affect our children and our children’s children, but generations to come. Given the information we now have about global warming and the compromised nature of our earth, we have a profound responsibility to use caution and tread thoughtfully.

We applaud our Governor’s efforts to reduce global warming and green house gas emissions by vetoing this project. Emerging scientific reports indicate that LNG may represent one step forward, but two steps backward in the fight against global warming.

Lt. Governor John Garamendi and State Controller John Chiang, along with 12 California Coastal Commissioners, demonstrated remarkable courage when they rejected the BHP Billiton LNG Terminal and their comments on record were telling. In sum, they refused to accept a project that would foul our air, degrade our ocean, endanger marine life, and generate greenhouse gases that would contribute to global warming. Equally significant, they called for a more coherent review process for pending LNG terminal proposals that are currently in line to receive approval. But most of all, both our Lt. Gov. and our State Controller asked a basic question: Does California need to build an LNG terminal to meet its energy needs? Their mutual conclusion was that the information they had before them was insufficient to make that decision and they urged the State to pass legislation that would require California to answer that very basic and critical question.

Our heartfelt thanks to all who worked to defeat this project.

- Keely and Pierce

[sparklingblue]

Hooray!

[Ace]

Malibu Surfside News: File Closed on Cabrillo Port: Governor Sounds Death Knell

• Veto Sends Strong Environmental Message to Future Energy Projects in the State

BY HANS LAETZ

Local ocean advocates said they have started planning “a really big party” after Gov. Arnold Schwar­zenegger nailed the coffin shut on a proposed $1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal off the Mal­ibu coast Friday.

The governor’s veto ends a con­tentious four-year battle over what would have been the largest floating industrial facility along the California coast, a controversy that brought Malibu celebrities, including Pierce Brosnan, out to campaign against the project proposed by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton.

Early this week, the Environ­mental Protection Agency said it was halting its effort to determine if BHP’s Cabrillo Port LNG terminal could get an exemption from federal and state smog rules. “Our recommendation has be­come moot,” an EPA official concluded, as EPA closed the file on Cabrillo Port.

And, perhaps not coincidentally, a competing firm that wants to unload LNG near Oxnard promised last week to “voluntarily” meet the same Ventura County smog laws that BHP said were impossible. That announcement from Northern Star was quietly floated three days before the governor had to make his decision on BHP’s Cabrillo Port.

And reaction to that veto from Malibu to Sacramento to Texas went along predictable lines, with coastal advocates left jubilant.

“Three years ago, this looked like a done deal, and that ship was a sure thing to be anchored off the coast of Malibu,” said Malibu City Councilmember Andy Stern who was out front in opposition to the project.

Shirley Godwin, an Oxnard organizer who worked for four years against the project, said, “The legal team and technical experts from the California Coastal Protection Network and the Environmental Defense Center did outstanding work.

“Our elected officials spoke out, investigative reporters provided us with important information,” Godwin said. “Numerous or­ganizations from throughout the west coast gave their support. The residents studied the is­sues and wrote letters, walked neighborhoods, made phone calls, and attended many, many meetings.”

In Australia, a disappointed Resources Minister Ian Mac­farlane said that “not being successful simply means we have more gas to sell in other markets, probably at a higher price.”

He told the Australian Broad­casting Company, “This decision means Australian LNG exporters are able to pursue markets in Asia and India and in the Asia Pacific rim,” he said.

“We’re thrilled, we’re ecstatic,” said Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network.

“We respect, but are disappointed by the governor’s decision to disapprove Cabrillo Port,” said Patrick Cassidy, BHP’s communications director, from his Houston office. He said it was too early to say what would happen to the handful of employees at the company’s Oxnard office.

The proposed facility, a floating aircraft-carrier-sized ship that was to be anchored 13.8 miles off Leo Carrillo State Beach, was effectively stalled in April by two independent state agencies. The governor’s action Friday formally ended the application process and eliminated any and all possibility of court review, no matter how unlikely it is that a judicial challenge could have succeeded, opponents said.

Schwarzenegger had voiced early support for the Cabrillo Port plan, and Stern said his decision was dramatic. “He obviously listened and respected the opinions of the people along the coast,” Stern said.

“BHP always marketed this as an Oxnard project, and didn’t ever mention that it was closer to Malibu,” said CCPN’s Jordan. “I want to single out the efforts of Pierce and Keely Brosnan for really bringing this to the fore.”

The actor and his wife, an en­vironmental journalist, helped organize a “paddle-out” at the Malibu Pier last fall that attracted hundreds of Malibu residents and worldwide news attention to the LNG battle.
In his veto message, the governor voiced support for the concept of LNG imports into the state. “But any LNG import fac­ility must meet the strict environmental standards California demands to continue to improve our air quality, protect our coast, and preserve our marine environment,” he wrote.

“The Cabrillo Port LNG project, as designed, fails to meet that test,” Schwarzenegger concluded.

Last April, the California State Lands Commission held that Cabrillo Port would add more than 250 metric tons of greenhouse gas per year to the world’s atmosphere, if the state counted the worldwide emissions caused by compressing natural gas off the Australia coast and shipping it across the Pacific.

“There has been a great change in the Administration’s attitude towards LNG,” said Jordan. “For the first time, we hear him talking about worldwide greenhouse gas emissions caused by LNG imports.”
Jordan said her group does not necessarily oppose LNG imports, but has not been shown any need for a foreign fuel that some industry analysts say is both more expensive and more polluting than domestic natural gas supplies.

Santa Barbara environmental attorney Linda Krop said, “Both the commissions and the governor realized that LNG is not a clean fuel and is not a bridge fuel to help us until we come up with clean technologies.”

Cassidy said it was too early to say if BHP would come back with a redesigned LNG terminal for the lucrative California natural gas market. The company might have made $50 billion over the next 40 years if it had won the race to be the first LNG terminal in California waters, Australian government officials had said.

More than 40 LNG im­port terminals are being proposed around the na­tion, but given their great ex­pense, federal officials doubt that more than a few will be built. BHP’s project was the only California LNG terminal to complete the regulatory process, al­though the Sempra Cor­poration is about 75 percent complete building an LNG terminal for the California market in En­senada, Baja California.
BHP is partner with Wood­­side, another natural gas company, in several Australian gas fields, and Woodside is about to file its application to construct two LNG unloading buoys at a site midway between Mal­ibu and Catalina Is­land. Cassidy said BHP and Woodside are also jointly in­volved in many projects around the globe, but it is too early to say if some sort of joint BHP-Woodside LNG terminal here is in the works.

Industry analysts note that BHP’s gas fields off Australia are far offshore, and that Woodside might have to level an endangered coral reef to build its Aus­tralian LNG gasification shipment harbor.
Two other firms are also planning to ask permission to unload LNG offshore, one at an oil-drilling platform in the ocean near Ox­nard, and the other near some existing offshore oil rigs off Huntington Beach.

In Sacramento, a spokes­man for the Cali­fornia Man­­ufacturers and Tech­nology Associa­tion said he was pleased the governor came down in favor of LNG im­ports in general.

“We appreciate that the governor agrees that we need LNG as a part of our energy portfolio,” said Gino DiCaro, the group’s spokes­person. “While we are disappointed he did not ap­prove this project, we are confident that LNG is a safe and clean alternative.”

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Came across this vid produced by the Malibu Surf Shack on the day of the big protest in the water.  Pierce is at 2:15 and then again at 6:20 ...