Advocates to Speak Out Against LNG Exports at EPA Environmental Justice Advisory Council Public Meeting

Washington, DC -- This afternoon, environmental justice advocates and community members will attend the annual meeting of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) to express concern about the fossil fuel industry’s proposed expansion of fracked gas exports. 

NEJAC is an advisory body on environmental justice issues for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and can raise important issues to the health and safety of communities with the agency. At their annual public meeting, attendees plan to detail the impacts of gas export and other fossil fuel infrastructure on communities and urge NEJAC to ensure that EPA does not allow LNG exports or other projects to move forward that would cause harm to public health and safety for already overburdened low-income communities and communities of color. 

The public meeting will be held today and tomorrow from 3-7pm ET each day, with public comment from 5-7pm. To listen in, register HERE. 

Statements from community members and advocates who plan to testify before NEJAC: 

Naomi Yoder, Staff Scientist, Healthy Gulf: "NEJAC has been charged with the duty of protecting Black and brown communities from environmental harm.  There is no better way for them to do so than to evaluate how the unchecked building of LNG and petrochemical facilities along the Gulf of Mexico coast impacts these communities.  Greenhouse gas emissions from LNG plants in Louisiana will soon exceed the entire greenhouse gas emissions of the City of Baton Rouge.  The time to act is now." 

Frankie Orona, Society of Native Nations: “The EPA is failing at its job. We see the oil and gas industry continue to build out and pollute our Gulf Coast. EPA should stop siding with corporate greed and listen to the community directly impacted, and reject these permits.” 

John Beard, Founder and CEO of the Port Arthur Community Action Network: “The petrochemical industry makes big, but empty promises to impoverished, fenceline communities. They make promises of jobs, business opportunities and community improvements that never materialize. Meanwhile, we breathe foul, polluted air, drink tainted water and live on contaminated lands. We are the sacrificed, with poverty, poisoned air, and poor health as rewards. This is unacceptable. Without an economics-based social, restorative justice, there can be no environmental justice.”

Leslie Fields, National Director of Policy, Advocacy, and Legal for the Sierra Club: "We are in a crisis moment that calls for the EPA to step up and protect people from the proposed build out of dozens of new fracked gas export facilities along the Gulf Coast. It is an issue of environmental justice that people’s lives depend on. The EPA can and must work to ensure that communities are protected against the proposed expansion of fracked gas exports. Our families and communities deserve no less." 

Donna Hoffman, fourth-generation Texan and environmental justice advocate: "Frontline communities in the Permian Gulf Coast Coalition are asking NEJAC to help to stop the current rush to build out proposed oil and gas export terminals, plastics plants, and desalination plants that would disproportionately impact the black and indigenous people of the global majority. Together, we want a just transition with good paying jobs for all and a healthy clean economy moving forward.  We want just transition plans and an immediate halt – an injunction against these fossil fuel projects proposed in Gulf Coast communites."

For interviews to discuss the meeting and environmental justice concerns about gas exports, contact Gabby Brown at gabby.brown@sierraclub.org.