A new analysis, Permit to Kill, released by Greenpeace USA and the Sierra Club, indicates that permitted emissions from both currently operating and planned LNG terminals in the US have an impact on public health.
The report states that the selected LNG export facilities degrade the air quality and public health of adjacent communities through the release of various pollutants (including NOx, particulate matter, benzene, toluene, formaldehyde), some of which are known to cause respiratory illness, cancer and birth defects through prolonged exposure.
Key findings from the report include:
Direct air pollution from currently operating LNG export terminals is estimated to cause 60 premature deaths and $957 million in total health costs per year. (These estimates of premature deaths and total health costs use the Environmental Protection Agency’s CO-Benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) Health Impacts Screening and Mapping Tool “high estimate.” COBRA natively outputs high and low estimates that reflect uncertainty in the relationship between PM2.5 exposure and adult premature deaths based on the results of two different cohort studies. The low estimates are 40 premature deaths and $723 million in total health costs per year.)
If all the planned terminals and expansion projects are built, these numbers would increase to 149 premature deaths and $2.33 billion in health costs per year.
At the national level, Black and Hispanic Americans would respectively experience air pollution from LNG terminals at 151–170% and 110–129% the rate of white Americans, if all projects slated for 2030 are built. (The range of percentages reflects different values for ozone (lower number) and PM2.5 (higher number)).
If DOE ceases to approve new LNG export applications, it would save an estimated 707 to 1,110 lives and avoid $9.88 to $15.1 billion in health costs through 2050, by comparison to a scenario where all projects are built.
Greenpeace USA Senior Research Specialist, and report co-author, Andres Chang said: “Our research shows that air pollution from continuing the LNG buildout would hit fenceline communities the hardest, but would also be carried downwind to further away cities like Dallas and New Orleans, causing childhood asthma onset, lost work and school days and premature death.”
In January, the Biden-Harris administration and DOE announced a pause pending approvals of LNG export applications while DOE updates the economic and environmental studies that are used to inform the public interest determination.
Dr. Robert D. Bullard, Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice and Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas Southern University, said: “The Permit to Kill report underscores what residents in frontline communities have been saying for decades – it’s time for DOE to stop using permitted emissions from operating and planned LNG export terminals as a license to pollute our most vulnerable people and places.
“DOE now has the opportunity and moral responsibility to correct its flawed approach, methodology, thinking and assumptions that follow the dominant pattern and allow Black, Hispanic and low-income residents to be overburdened with health threatening air pollution. Our communities matter.”
