PA House Environmental Committee to hold LNG terminal hearing Nov. 5
The Pennsylvania House Envionmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee will hold a hearing in Chester Nov. 5 on the proposed Penn America Energy LNG export terminal.
The hearing will be at 10 a.m. at Chester City Hall, 1 Fourth St., Chester, Wednesday, Nov. 5. The committee will announced a full roster of testifiers both for and against the project. Zulene Mayfield of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living and Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeepers Network are already slated to speak against the proposal.
Originally Penn America Energy proposed to build a terminal at the old Ford Motor plant in Chester but opponents thought they had killed that proposal last year when former President Joe Biden instituted a moratorium on LNG projects. Then after the election of Donald Trump, Penn America CEO Franc James visited Trump to seek his suppprt. After that meeting, James acknowleged local opposition had likely killed the plant in Chester but he told Reuters a plant could be built in Trainer, Eddystone or in Marcus Hook, where Enegy Transfer already exports liquid natural gas products.
PAE has been seeking for years to advance a project to build an LNG plant on the Delaware River, to export 7.2 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually.
Penn America argues that a Delaware River port could tap into the vast, low-cost Marcellus natural gas resources, and, when compared to U.S. Gulf Coast projects, it offers shorter shipping distances to Europe and other key LNG markets, Penn America Energy says. Moreover, the Delaware River ship channel has been deepened to enable the region’s full participation in global marine commerce. It would require the construction of new pipelines through Delaware County.
Opponents contend it is too dangerous to build an LNG terminal anywhere along the navigable Delaware River waterfront in Pennsylvania, both because of the pollutants that will be spewed into the air and because of the potential for a major explosion. In other parts of the United states, LNG terminals have been sited well away from heavily populated areas. Here, thousands of people living along the riverfront are already exposed to a stew of industrial pollutants. In addition, an LNG explosion could level a two-mile-square area. There is nowhere along the riverfront industrial corridor where such an explosion would not devastate thousands of homes and lives.
People are invited to attend the hearing in person or you can watch a livestream broadcast on the House committee website.
If you are attending in person, arrive before 10 a.m. to get a seat. Park in the city hall parking lot.
Photo: Negishi LNG Terminal, Yokohama, Japan
