A proposed Plaquemines Parish liquefied natural gas plant is moving forward after a Baton Rouge judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by environmental groups arguing that the project failed to obtain a needed coastal use permit.
Judge Wilson Fields of the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge issued the decision on March 13, concluding that the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Healthy Gulf and the Sierra Club had filed the complaint in the wrong venue.
On the same day, the second phase of Venture Global’s LNG export terminal completed a $7.8-billion funding deal to advance the project. The aim of the Plaquemines Parish project is to provide low-cost LNG from the United States to the global markets in anticipation of rapidly expanding demands for energy worldwide, according to Venture Global.
But environmental groups have questioned the air-quality impact of such facilities on residents of the region, since the Plaquemines project would eventually produce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 35.8 million cars, according to a 2022 Sierra Club report.
“The judge decided that our lawsuit should have been filed in Plaquemines Parish,” Monique Harden, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice’s director of law and public policy, Monique Harden, said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “This decision has nothing to do with the merits of our case against the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR). At this time, we are considering our options. But make no mistake, we will press on to hold the DNR accountable for the protection of coastal communities.”
DNR previously concluded that the LNG project did not need a state coastal permit, finding that the plant would not affect nearby coastal waters.
Some economists have questioned whether such large investments in LNG export facilities make sense in the long term. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said global energy conditions are in flux as a result of the war in Ukraine and a potential LNG supply glut later in the decade as new LNG facilities worldwide come online.
“(The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) should consider that assumptions about global demand for additional LNG export capacity (in Louisiana) were based on long-term relatively low gas prices prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and old commissioned studies,” the institute said in a recent report.