OIL & GAS EXPORTS

With the 2015 reversal of a decades-long ban on U.S. crude oil exports and the advent of fracking technology enabling a massive expansion of gas production in the Permian Basin and elsewhere, profiteering polluters are now racing to strike it rich, pursuing massive new facilities all along the Gulf Coast to export Texas fossil fuels to the highest international bidders.

Some are working to build colossal new offshore crude oil export terminals, while others are planning new or expanding fracked methane gas (often called liquified natural gas, or LNG) export facilities of ever-increasing scale. While the details of each project may differ, the story is always exactly the same – a handful of executives and their paid-for friends in relentless pursuit of a giant payday, willfully blind to the consequences for everyone else.

But the consequences are very real, and deadly serious. In the predominantly Black, Latine, Asian-American, Indigenous and low-income communities of coastal Texas and Louisiana where almost all new fossil fuel export infrastructure is sited, studies clearly show that residents suffer from a range of negative impacts, including elevated rates of asthma, lung and cardiovascular disease, and cancer, from polluting industry.

And while big polluters and their allies crow about creating local jobs and opportunity, the truth is that good local jobs rarely materialize, local economies suffer from the destruction of ecosystems and other negative impacts, and too often local governments give tax breaks to big polluters that forfeit much-needed community revenue.

This is to say nothing of the obvious impact of big new oil and gas export projects on the global climate. We know that the continued release of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels is leading to disastrous changes in the climate, including a rapid acceleration of natural catastrophes – from deadly hurricanes and floods to devastating wildfires and droughts. We also know that the victims of these disasters are often the same people already under siege by polluting fossil fuel facilities.

For all of these reasons, across the Gulf South, local activists are fighting to protect their communities and standing up for the future of our planet – and TCE is proud to stand with them. Our team is actively engaged in partnerships with a growing network of community leaders and global allies, all working together to put the “ex” in U.S. fossil fuel exports.