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Jamming LNG down our throats

Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The Oregonian

The relentless campaign to plant liquefied-natural-gas terminals and pipelines in Oregon has little to do with the state's need for the sludge and everything to do with the state's inability to defend itself when the energy giants are prowling for profits.

"This stuff hasn't landed on us by coincidence," said Ron Sadler of North Bend, a 34-year veteran of the Bureau of Land Management. "The energy industry is following the line of least resistance."

The resistance movement in Oregon is now in full boom, of course, as everyone in the congressional delegation except Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., is taking up arms against -- to borrow from Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. -- the "neo-con, libertarian, self-regulating, free-market ideologues" in the Bush administration.

Even Gov. Ted Kulongoski, slow to anger on environmental issues and slower to respond, is demanding that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission initiate the comprehensive review required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

FERC continues to ignore those demands for an environmental impact statement that evaluates the need for, and alternatives to, liquefied natural gas. The agency's policy is to permit every terminal and pipeline project, then allow the market to choose the most viable option.

Never mind that monopolies and market forces in this deregulated environment are more likely to produce an Enron than a rational link between price, supply and demand.

"The Bush administration," Sadler notes, "has a seven-year history of ignoring NEPA. We're stuck with a recalcitrant federal agency that doesn't want to follow its rules. The interaction with the public has been a farce. The only way to get their attention is to take them to court."

Until 2005, California and Washington -- but not Oregon -- had laws that complemented the National Environmental Policy Act and gave the states additional power to fend off LNG sitings.

Three proposals for terminals in northern California were "chased out of town by citizen opposition," said Rory Cox of Pacific Environment.

But many of those states' laws were pre-empted, DeFazio said, by "the Dick Cheney energy bill."

That bill, the Energy Policy Act, was driven, DeFazio argues, "by an energy industry concerned that the states' concerns and preferences for siting energy facilities might slow down their rush to make a buck. Bush and Cheney are all for state rights until those rights interfere with the marketplace. They pre-empted the states, plain and simple."

On Monday, four U.S. senators, including Hillary Clinton and Oregon's Ron Wyden, introduced legislation to strip FERC, which is happier promoting business than regulating it, of that siting authority.

But as things now stand, Cox said, "there's no oversight over the process. There's no proven need for LNG. There's no talk about what imported liquefied natural gas will do to people's power bills. On the world power market, LNG is fetching twice what domestic natural gas costs."

The result in Oregon, DeFazio said, is a "train wreck. Local communities are unsettled, and no planning can go forward."

The state still has a few options, including the Coastal Zone Management Act, in sparring with FERC. Oregon may even have an ally in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last week that the environmental and safety issues involved in siting LNG facilities are so important that Delaware can prevent New Jersey from planting a terminal on the latter's side of the Delaware River.

But who among us isn't counting the days until someone in the White House is working with the state of Oregon and not so doggedly against its best interests?

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin Clarification published Wednesday, April 9: Steve Duin's Tuesday column on the ongoing liquefied natural gas debate in Oregon noted that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., had signed on to proposed legislation by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to strip the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of siting authority for LNG terminals. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., added his name as co-sponsor of that legislation Monday afternoon.

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