Two environmental groups have filed a new legal challenge to the Biden administration’s approval of a yet-to-be-built project that would send Alaska‘s North Slope’s vast natural gas reserves to markets.
In a petition filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club argued that federal agencies did not adequately consider the harm the massive natural gas project would cause to animals included in the Endangered Species Act that live in the affected areas. marine areas: polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales, and eastern North Pacific right whales.
The petition was filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, along with the agencies’ parent departments, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce.
Last year, the Biden administration renewed export approval for the project, which has been pursued in various forms since the 1970s but was never built. The current plan is being promoted by the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. It proposes a 42-inch-diameter pipeline that will run about 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to the tidewater at Cook Inlet, where a new facility would convert the product. to liquefied natural gas and loading it into tankers for export to Asian markets.
The Biden administration’s most recent approval, which follows many other permits and approvals over the years, was based on flawed biological reviews, environmental groups argued.
“Formal approval of the Alaska LNG project was reckless in many ways,” Sierra Club Alaska Chapter Director Andrea Feniger said in a statement. “The project will be devastating for vulnerable wildlife already struggling to cope with the catastrophic impacts of climate change. “The agencies responsible for assessing impacts on whales, polar bears and other species did not take adequate care in assessing the full extent of the damage that Alaska LNG will cause.”
The lawsuit comes about a week after a different case was filed challenging the project. On May 22, a group of Alaska youth sued the state to block the project due to its anticipated carbon emissions and impact on climate change. That case was filed in Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage.
The cases are unrelated and the timing of the two is coincidental, said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. However, “this just goes to show how damaging this project would be in a variety of different ways,” she said via email.
The environmental groups’ legal suit was filed directly in the appeals court, bypassing lower courts, in accordance with the Natural Gas Law, Monsell said.
Under the law’s judicial review provision, challenges to permits for LNG projects other than those issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must be filed directly in the appellate courts where the projects are located, he said.
Last August, the same environmental groups filed an earlier lawsuit challenging the export approval in a different court. That challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Energy, alleged that federal approval decisions overlooked the climate and non-climate environmental impacts of the project. LNG not yet built. That lawsuit remains pending; The most recent action was a series of briefs filed by opposing parties earlier this month.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., responding to the latest legal challenge, said numerous reviews have already shown the project is worthwhile.
“Alaska LNG has withstood intense environmental scrutiny by two successive administrations because of its obvious and abundant benefits, including reducing global emissions by up to 2.3 billion tons, strengthening allied energy security, and, Finally, an end to long-standing air quality problems plaguing Interior Alaska villages and communities. ”corporation spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick said via email.
The North Slope has about 35 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas reserves, and more are believed to exist in different areas of the region, including conventional sources that would be produced by normal drilling technology and unconventional sources that would require more advanced technology. . , according to estimates from the United States Geological Survey.
While oil has flowed from the North Slope since 1977, the natural gas that exists in the same fields has been stranded with no market and no means of delivery to a market. The natural gas pumped with oil in the North Slope fields is mostly reinjected into the ground to help extract more oil.
State, federal and industry officials have for decades pursued plans to build pipelines to send that natural gas to markets (including a plan that was backed by then-President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s), but none have proven successful. economically viable.
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. estimates its plan would cost $39 billion.
The Alaska Legislature, in its operating budget approved earlier this month, appropriated money to continue operations of the state corporation during the fiscal year that begins July 1.
(Alaska pipeline leaders ask lawmakers to support year-end deadline to see signs of progress)
Lawmakers allocated about $2.5 million in general-purpose state money to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., less than the $4.5 million the corporation had requested at the start of the session. The corporation can also spend up to $3.1 million from a special account specific to the gas line, within the operating budget.
Early in the session, some lawmakers expressed skepticism about continued state funding for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and its efforts.
Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization covering Alaska state government.
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