Climate Blow as Giant LNG Plant Gets Nod to Run to 2070
Good morning, it's Ainsley here with all the news you need to start your day.
Today's must-reads:
• North West Shelf plant gets preliminary extension
• Albanese faces dilemma over Port of Darwin
• Opposition regroups a week after split
Environment Minister Murray Watt said he's made a proposed decision to extend North West Shelf LNG's operating life to 2070, with conditions. Operator Woodside Energy will have 10 business days to respond. The preliminary approval to extend the life of Australia's biggest and oldest LNG plan potentially creates billions of dollars in new drilling opportunities but raises questions about the nation's climate agenda.
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'In a twist of irony,' Jeffers' firm said in an online post, Trump's revocation of NEPA regulations, 'could lead to greater delays in environmental reviews and permitting' for fossil fuel and mining projects, 'at least in the near term.' Trump administration officials' push for agencies to use emergency authorities to speed projects will likely draw court challenges, Tuck said, because laws and regulations generally have very narrow criteria for what qualifies as an emergency. 'Our very consistent response is: 'Be wary of anything they offer to shortcut,'' said Tuck, a partner at Vinson & Elkins. Brandon Tuck of Vinson & Elkins | Linkedin Opponents of the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley gas pipelines accused agencies of taking such shortcuts to speed approval of the projects. They got a sympathetic ear from federal appeals court judges. Atlantic Coast got canceled after years of delays. The Mountain Valley gas pipeline finished more than five years late and billions of dollars over budget, and only after Congress and Biden rescued it. Interior's plan to shrink the time for environmental assessments (EA) to 14 days and environmental impact statements to 28 days, was 'much more aggressive than anything I anticipated,' said Hill, the Interior Department veteran. He's watching for details. 'It's one thing to say you're going to do an EA in 14 days,' he said. 'It's another thing to say how you're going to do that, and I don't think that granular level of detail has been provided.' Tuck said he expects the overhaul to change the order in which tasks are done, not make the process 10 times faster. Developers will need to spend more time and money before applying for an EA or environmental impact statement (EIS) to ensure they've provided everything regulatory agencies will need. Only after that can they expect such a quick decision. 'Nobody's writing an EIS in 28 days. That's fanciful,' Tuck said. 'What they're saying is, you give us all the information, all the analysis, and we'll review it and process it posthaste. But how long does it take clients to develop that information? Oh, you know, many, many months — a year, a year and a half, two years.' The purges of Trump and Musk have been promoted as a way to save money. But energy experts say they could wind up costing project developers a lot of time. The aggressive approach Trump and Musk used to thin the ranks may also have hit the people who could move projects along. When CEO Amy Andryszak of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America presented a list of changes to laws that could speed interstate gas pipeline projects to a House subcommittee last month, she didn't mention Musk's chainsaw approach or the Trump administration's 'Reduction in Force' push. But she did add that 'adequate staffing and expertise across federal agencies' was also important. 'If we are going to build the infrastructure necessary to meet growing energy demand and the administration's goals of American energy dominance,' she said in a statement emailed to POLITICO's E&E News, 'we need agencies with the resources and personnel necessary to ensure the certification and development of the aforementioned infrastructure.' Hill said he's confident the administration has been careful to keep the federal employees needed to keep the permits flowing. But federal employees can do more than just process permits. Agencies can sometimes actively help move projects through the process. But they can't if they don't have enough staff. As an example, Tuck said the Army Corps of Engineers has long done wetland delineations, for landowners, showing which parts of their property can be developed without Clean Water Act concerns. At one point, the agency was able to perform them even for those not seeking permits. But even before Musk opened the throttle on his chainsaw, Tuck said, the Army Corps was cutting back. With the mass exodus from federal offices, he expects the agency will be able to do even fewer. It's too early to know if Trump's plans will mean more energy projects get completed. But at least one big energy project has been slowed by the Trump administration itself. Empire Wind 1, a New York wind energy project, was stalled by the Trump administration in April, though it had all its permits and construction had started. Trump recently relented and allowed work to resume. That has fueled speculation that, in return, Trump expects to get the Constitution natural gas pipeline built through New York. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has said there is no such 'deal.' The developer of that project, Williams Cos., announced Thursday it is reviving the project and another pipeline planned for the Northeast. The saga illustrates the danger to developers from shifting political priorities. Such moves have happened in other administrations. One of Biden's first actions was to cancel the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which was designed to move Canadian oil into the United States. Former president Barack Obama put the Dakota Access pipeline on ice when protests heated up in North Dakota. The project was rescued by Trump and now moves oil from the Bakken play to the Midwest. The irony of Empire Wind is that the reason the Trump administration gave for stopping it in the first place — 'rushed approval' and lack of 'significant analysis' — is exactly what critics say Trump is inviting for fossil fuel projects.
