In early June 2024, Sierra Club Environmental Law Program Senior Attorney Doug Hayes traveled to West Texas with Senior Campaign Organizer Roddy Hughes to meet with frontline communities fighting the proposed Saguaro Connector Pipeline and tour the massive fracking buildout in the Permian Basin.
If built, the Saguaro Pipeline would transport over 2.8 billion cubic feet a day of gas from the Permian Basin to a proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export facility on the west coast of Mexico over 600 miles away. It would provide industry with a direct route for exporting gas to Asian markets, bypassing the Panama Canal. The project would lock in increased greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, and would threaten the fragile landscapes, vulnerable communities, and precious waterways of West Texas.
In June, Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program and Public Citizen filed a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) fast-track approval of the Saguaro Pipeline. FERC’s authorization of Saguaro limited the scope of its review to the impacts of a 1,000-foot section of pipe that would cross the Rio Grande River, and turned a blind eye to everything outside that footprint, including impacts to climate and environmental justice. The approval was incomplete and rushed, especially at a time when the U.S. Department of Energy is updating how it evaluates whether new gas projects are consistent with the public interest.
During their trip to West Texas, Doug and Roddy toured the Saguaro border crossing near the town of Sierra Blanca, which encompasses a spectacular and fragile desert ecosystem, teeming with wildlife along the Rio Grande River, with rugged mountains and cliffs in every direction. The team also toured the Waha Hub area of the Permian Basin, which is the largest oil and gas field in the U.S., producing on average 6.3 million barrels of crude oil per day and 18 billion cubic feet of gas per day. The scale of these operations, and the sheer number of smokestacks spewing air pollution in every direction is hard to fathom.
Most importantly, at every turn, they met with local ranchers and community members who oppose the Saguaro Pipeline and other fossil fuel projects that increasingly threaten the health and economic viability of the region. It was inspiring to see so many people refuse to stand by and watch their communities become sacrifice zones, and, instead, stand up to the oil and gas industry in an area where that is very difficult to do.