Environmentalists protest as huge oil terminal gains approval

WASHINGTON>> In a move that environmentalists called a betrayal, the Biden administration has approved the construction of a deepwater oil export terminal off the Texas coast that would be the largest of its kind in the United States.

The Sea Port Oil Terminal being developed off Freeport, Texas, will be able to load two supertankers at once, with an export capacity of 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. The $1.8 billion project by Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners received a deepwater port license from the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration this week, the final step in a five-year federal review.

Environmentalists denounced the license approval, saying it contradicted President Joe Biden’s climate agenda and would lead to “disastrous” planetwarming greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to nearly 90 coal-fired power plants. The action could jeopardize Biden’s support from environmental allies and young voters disenchanted by the Democratic administration’s approval last year of the massive Willow oil project in Alaska.

“Nothing about this project is in alignment with President Biden’s climate and environmental justice goals,” said Kelsey Crane, senior policy advocate at Earthworks, an environmental group that has long opposed the export terminal. “The communities that will be impacted by (the oil terminal) have once again been ignored and will be forced to live with the threat of more oil spills, explosions and pollution,” Crane said.

“The best way to protect the public and the climate from the harms of oil is to keep it in the ground.”

In a statement after the license was approved, the Maritime Administration said the project meets a number of congressionally mandated requirements, including extensive environmental reviews and a federal determination that the port’s operation is in the national interest.

“While the Biden-harris administration is accelerating America’s transition to a clean energy future, action also is being taken to manage the transition in the near term,” said the agency, which is nicknamed MARAD.

The administration’s multiyear review included consultation with at least 20 federal, state and local agencies, MARAD said. The agency ultimately determined that the project would have no significant effect on the production or consumption of U.S. crude oil. “Although the (greenhouse gas) emissions associated with the upstream production and downstream end use of the crude oil to be exported from the project may represent a significant amount of GHG emissions, these emissions largely already occur as part of the U.S. crude oil supply chain,” the agency said in an email to The Associated Press.

“Therefore, the project itself is likely to have minimal effect on the current GHG emissions associated with the overall U.S. crude oil supply chain.”

Environmental groups scoffed at that claim. “The Biden administration must stop flip-flopping on fossil fuels,” said Cassidy Dipaola of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit group that opposes the use of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.