COMMUNITY IMPACTS
The methane gas industry is harming people in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, as well as low-income communities.
Producing, using, and exporting methane gas (what the fossil fuel industry calls “natural” gas) exacerbates and perpetuates the racially and economically disproportionate impacts of the fossil industry. Building out a massive expansion of liquified "natural" gas (LNG) export terminals would harm communities at every step — from fracked wells, to pipeline leaks and pollution, and dangerous and dirty gas export terminals. And burning all of that methane gas would make it all but impossible to reach our domestic and international climate goals.
LNG Hurts Public Health and Environmental Quality:
LNG terminals adversely affect public health and environmental quality. Methane gas pollution contains volatile organic compounds like benzene (a known carcinogen with no safe level of exposure) and toluene (known to cause detrimental impacts to the nervous system).
These volatile organic compounds and other air pollutants from the methane gas industry (like nitrous oxide and inhalable particulate matter) can travel far away from their source, but the people who live near gas infrastructure and export terminals are especially vulnerable.
People in these communities are exposed to the gas industry’s toxic pollution on a daily basis, putting them at a higher risk of asthma attacks, cancers and more.
LNG Drives Up Prices:
Exporting methane gas also hurts Americans financially because it drives high domestic gas (and electricity) prices and inflation. These adverse financial impacts are not borne equally or equitably, as they hit low-income and communities of color harder than other communities.
LNG Exacerbates the Climate Crisis:
And with regard to the climate crisis, the U.S. already exports more methane gas (and with it more methane gas pollution) than any other country in the world. Building more export terminals across the Gulf Coast to export even more methane gas means locking in decades of gas production, infrastructure, and use—making it all but impossible to reach our domestic and international climate targets.
Yet, time and again, President Biden and his administration have enabled the methane gas industry by approving new and expanded gas export terminals and sacrificing Gulf coast communities.
President Biden must do better, so our communities can be better!
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