WARNING:
LNG IS HAZARDOUS TO HEALTH

Dear President Biden,

 

We, our nation’s concerned health professionals, urge you to find that Venture Global’s CP2 Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal is not in the public’s interest. We urge you to prioritize public health and put a stop to the malignant growth of LNG export terminals in the Gulf Coast.

 

The fossil fuel industry has demonstrated blatant disregard for the health of our oceans, our planet, and all people by proposing 22 new LNG export terminals in the Gulf Coast, up from six in 2020 nationwide. The evidence on the health harms of burning fossil fuels is clear. And yet, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued permits for nine of these new terminals. 

 

CP2 LNG is projected to release 190 million metric tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) per year – equivalent to emissions from 42.4 million gasoline-powered cars or 51 coal plants. 

If all the proposed export terminals were completed, they would add planet-warming emissions equivalent to 675 coal plants. This would erode into the progress the United States is making towards a renewable energy transition, with only 242 coal power plants operating in 2022 down from 557 plants in 2012.

 

As health professionals who have committed our lives to protecting and improving health, we are extremely concerned about the environmental racism, cumulative pollution, and climate impacts of these LNG export terminals. 

 

Climate change is the greatest public health threat of this century, and Americans are already suffering its health impacts. In 2023, health professionals across the country have cared for workers who collapsed under extreme heat, helped kids breathe as climate-intensified wildfire smoke choked their lungs, and comforted families traumatized and displaced by climate-driven extreme weather. 

 

LNG is “natural” gas (methane), mainly extracted by fracking, that is supercooled into a liquid for storage and shipping – an extremely energy-intensive process. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is more than 80 times that of CO2 over twenty years. Despite industry claims, LNG is neither “clean” nor “pure”, but just as dirty as burning coal. Using the promise of unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a further attempt at greenwashing LNG as “clean energy”. Permitting CP2 and other LNG terminals will damage our climate and harm public health. 

 

The proposed LNG export terminals in the Gulf Coast will release air pollutants like nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which negatively impact people’s health. PM2.5 causes cardiovascular disease and is associated with preterm births, low birth weight, lowered IQ for children, high blood pressure, strokes, lung cancer, and premature death.  In the United States, 350,000 premature deaths are attributed to air pollution each year. In 2016 alone, air pollution from the oil and gas sector in the U.S. led to 410, 000 asthma exacerbations, 2200 new cases of childhood asthma, and 7500 excess deaths, with $77 billion in total health impacts. While the fossil fuel industry reaps profits from LNG exports, workers, and families in the Gulf Coast – predominantly Black and brown, and low-income – are paying the price with their health.  

 

CP2 LNG alone has an export capacity of 20 million metric tonnes per annum. If construction of all the proposed LNG export terminals were permitted, this will have profound upstream effects on public health across North America through increased fracking. Methane gas extraction exacerbates existing health inequities. Nearly 18 million individuals in the U.S. live within one mile of active well sites, including disproportionately large numbers of People of Color, people living below the poverty line, older individuals, and young children already facing high pollution and related disease burdens. Oil and gas drilling sites are twice as likely to be sited in historically redlined neighborhoods. Extensive research shows that there is no safe way to frack for methane gas. When fracking is permitted in a neighborhood, residents are at an increased risk for congenital heart defects, childhood leukemia, asthma, kidney disease, heart failure hospitalizations, and premature death.

                                                

In addition, storage and transport of methane gas poses severe safety risks like explosions at LNG terminals (such as the one that occurred at Freeport LNG in June 2022), and along transportation routes (by ship, train, or pipeline) putting communities living in the blast radius at risk. These LNG export terminals will also be in the corridor that has seen the most intense hurricanes in U.S. mainland history.

 

We applaud you for the impressive climate action you’ve taken: rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, canceling the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, and passing the most significant climate legislation in history, the Inflation Reduction Act. But these actions are insufficient to protect health, promote environmental justice, and meet our climate mitigation goals if we continue to build new fossil fuel infrastructure that will lock us into decades of future warming.

 

As health professionals, we stand in solidarity with frontline communities across the country facing the health impacts of fossil fuel pollution and climate change. We call on you to help us protect the health of current and future generations: Please find the CP2 project not in the public’s interest, and put an immediate halt to any further LNG export terminal authorization and permitting. 

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Signed,