The vision
“Our community, we want to propose an alternative economy that does not exploit the region, that does not use our people as cheap labor, that does not pollute the environment, that does not accelerate climate change.”
Bekah Hinojosa, an organizer in Brownsville, Texas
The spotlight
The US energy mix is heavily dependent on natural gas. It makes the largest share of electricity generation and home heating fuel consumption in the country. Over the past decade, the US has also become the world’s leader exporter of natural gas, building extensive infrastructure to convert the fuel into a form that is easier to store and transport — liquefied natural gas, or LNG — and ship it to markets in Europe. More projects are in the pipeline, which can almost double the country’s export capacity by the end of this decade, if approved by the Department of Energy.
But in January, the Biden administration announced a pause on approvals for new LNG terminals – a move that was greatly applauded by climate advocates and local leaders in the Gulf Coast, where the majority of current and proposed terminals are located. During the break, the DOE will review the impact of natural gas exports on both domestic energy prices and the climate.
Natural gas is 70 to 90 percent methane, a greenhouse gas that is approx 30 times stronger than carbon dioxide in the short term. It also tends to leak along its supply chain, contributing to global warming and creating pollution and explosion risks for communities living near this infrastructure. But even in the course of typical operations, these terminals cause hazardous pollution from flares burning off excess gas, from the massive amounts of fuel needed to liquefy the gas, and from increased shipping traffic.
Louisiana activist (en Grist 50 honored) Roishetta Ozane told Grist reporters that the administration’s decision “shows that the government recognizes the need to protect the rights and well-being of [Gulf] communities.”
Communities like Ozane already face some of the worst pollution in the country from the petrochemical industry, and LNG terminals threaten to exacerbate an already excessive burden. For some other communities, the fight against the LNG industry represents a last-ditch effort to prevent the same fate.
A construction site for a pipeline to bring gas to the Cheniere liquefied natural gas facility, which opened in 2018 near Portland, Texas. Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
“We’re a Gulf Coast community, but our community doesn’t look like the rest of the Gulf Coast,” says Bekah Hinojosa, an organizer in the city of Brownsville in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley (which on our 2022 Grist 50 list). “We don’t have existing fossil fuel refineries here. Our harbor does not look like the Houston Ship Channel. This is the first major industry trying to move into our low-income community.”
She and other local advocates fought two major projects: Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG, with the accompanying Rio Bravo pipeline that would bring fracked gas to the latter. These projects already have authorization from the Department of Energy, meaning they won’t be stalled by the Biden administration’s pause. But Hinojosa and her co-attorneys are continuing to mount their own defense. Their efforts have already yielded one victory in 2021 when a third project in the area, Annova LNG, has been cancelledand they applied pressure successfully customers and investors to withdraw from the other.
We spoke with Hinojosa to find out about the tools local communities like hers are using to push back against LNG expansion, as well as the fossil fuel-free future she hopes to create for her area. Her responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q. What are some of the primary concerns with LNG in the Rio Grande Valley?
A. Our coastal communities in this region are 100 percent against VNG. (Editor’s note: These 2015 articles of the Port Isabel Press provides a sense of the extent of local opposition to LNG projects.) They passed city resolutions against LNG [in] communities that are down the street from Brownsville: Port Isabel, South Padre Island, Laguna Vista, Long Island Village. And they are against LNG because it will completely destroy their way of life. Their local economies depend on shrimp and fishing and nature and ecotourism. People come here from all over the world to see sea turtles, to hike and fish and enjoy shrimp and our unique wetlands. This is what the economy of our coastal communities thrives on. And LNG would destroy it. They would dump pollution into the shipping channel where shrimp lay their eggs, [and they would] pollution in our low-income communities.
We don’t have good health care here. People cannot afford expensive medical bills. That’s why the communities oppose the LNG projects.
Then we have the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe, who are the original indigenous people of this region. They oppose LNG because these projects would build on sacred sites — specifically, the Texas LNG project would destroy a famous sacred Native site called Garcia Pasture that is on the National Park Service’s list of historic sites. It has ancestral burial grounds, village sites, artifacts, and Texas LNG wants to build on top of that. And they have never consulted with the Carrizo/Comecrudo clan.
V. In you Grist 50 profile, you described your opposition strategy as “death by a thousand cuts.” Is this still the approach – fight on every possible front?
A. Yes, absolutely. We are actively pushing insurance companies to withdraw from these LNG projects, [as well as] banks, private equity. We are trying to stop tax subsidies for these projects, trying to prevent customers, different corporations from signing contracts to import the gas. We have been working with communities around the world who do not want to see their countries involved in these projects. I mean, essentially, we’re yelling at any and every company involved in Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG to abandon these projects immediately, and doing so in solidarity with other communities that are affected. We [held two protests last week outside of corporate offices]one in Houston and one in New Yorkto stop the Rio Grande.
Q. Is there action you would like to see at the federal level, other than the pause on new LNG exports that the Biden administration announced in January?
A. Yeah, I mean, the break doesn’t apply to the projects we’re fighting in Brownsville. Unfortunately, they already have their DOE authorization. So we continue to call on the Biden administration to include these projects in the pause. I went to DC a few days after the break was announced, and I met with DOE officials and a White House official. The Carrizo/Comecrudo tribal representatives and I have encouraged the DOE to include these projects in the hiatus and to include meaningful community engagement as the DOE figures out what to do after the hiatus – and has them remind that our communities oppose these projects.
So we are not going back. We are escalating the amount of protests we are doing to stop these projects. We would like to see a plan and a pathway for LNG phased out and not continue to be approved.
Q. You’ve also been active against the SpaceX launch site near Brownsville. Can you tell me about some of the composite concerns there?
A. SpaceX is a different kind of industry here that harms and pollutes our community – and the launch pad is just a stone’s throw away from where the LNG terminals plan to build. We have already seen debris from the rocket explosions falling on the proposed LNG sites. We have sent comments, letters and demanded meetings about the safety hazards of SpaceX next to LNGand we were left in the dark.
We already have to deal with explosion hazards from rocket testing every year. My whole house started shaking – I felt an earthquake from the last SpaceX explosion in November. In April last year we saw dust fall over the community from another explosion. Rocket fragments have already rained down on our neighborhoods. And then LNG has its own explosion hazards. We have the Freeport LNG explosion which sent a blast that caused someone to fall off a couple of jetties and split their head open. So we are dealing with compound explosion risks. And all of these issues are related – SpaceX actually uses LNG for rocket fuel, and they’re proposing to build an LNG plant in another community down here.
Q. As you fight these industries, what is your vision for the Gulf Coast where you live in the next five to 10 years?
A. The Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe bought land near the port. They have a vision of an alternative economy for our community, and it seems to support their culture. They want to create jobs for local people to protect their sacred places, for people to come and learn about their tribal community. Our community, we want to propose an alternative economy that does not exploit the region, that does not use our people as cheap labor, that does not pollute the environment, that does not accelerate climate change.
So we are going to continue to advocate for it. We want the Port of Brownsville to be clean. The public officials here just don’t have much of a vision – they have failed our community. So we continue to have forums and make our voices louder about the future we want and need for our Gulf Coast community.
– Claire Elise Thompson
More exposure
See for yourself
There is still time to nominate climate leaders for this year’s Grist 50 list! Do you know an organizer who is standing up to the fossil fuel industry on behalf of their community (like Bekah Hinojosa)? Or an entrepreneur working on an innovative new solution, or an artist, a chef, a policy maker, a farmer, a scientist or some other kind of leader whose climate work deserves recognition? Use this form to tell us about them.
A parting shot
Local communities on the receiving end of natural gas exports also resist the construction of terminals where they live. In the town of Binz on the German island of Rügen last April, protesters formed a human chain on the beach to demonstrate their opposition to a proposed LNG terminal on the island.
