Stop GulfLink to block Climate Killing Fossil Fuel Exports

Meet the GulfLink export terminal, the latest fossil fuel export terminal killing the planet and making a mockery of US goals on climate action.

GulfLink would pump an additional 1 million barrels of crude oil per day to international buyers, creating an incredible 3.8 billion metric tons of climate-changing pollution. It’s also located (of course) in an Texas community that’s already overburdened with pollution and fossil fuel infrastructure.

The Biden Administration is accepting public comment on the GulfLink project for the next few weeks. Get your comment in now.

All year long, we’ve been fighting fossil fuel exports. We won an early victory with the Biden Administration’s pause on LNG exports. And in the last few weeks we’ve had a series of knock-on victories: 

• First, the DC Circuit court found against FERC multiple times, and even vacated a permit for a New Jersey Pipeline. The New Jersey order was surprising both because it vacated the permit for a pipeline that’s already been built and because they specifically called FERC out for ignoring local groups and state governments that showed they did not want or need the gas – that’s the same argument we’ve been making lately in FERC dockets like the New England Forward Capacity Auction, and a critical strike against fossil fuel exports, which drive UP prices for domestic consumers here at home.
• Then, earlier this week, major insurance company Chubb dropped the Rio Grande LNG export terminal – which was exactly what we’d asked them to do!
• Just hours later another earth-moving decision from the DC Circuit court vacated three permits, including Rio Grande LNG. Again, we’d told FERC and the Biden administration that they were failing to consider these consequences – and they ignored us.

All these actions and victories validate what we’ve said all along: The climate and environmental justice impacts of fossil fuel export projects are extreme, and regulators aren’t considering them. If they did, they wouldn’t approve these permits!

We realize that’s a lot of information and footnotes, so we made a quick video explainer:

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But none of that will stop GulfLink.  First, it’s an oil export terminal, not a gas or LNG export. That means FERC isn’t the decision-maker, and these recent court orders have not particular bearing (except for proving the point, again, that if you consider climate and environmental justice impacts, none of this stuff makes sense). Second, MARAD and the Coast Guard, who are the decision-makers here, have only considered one other terminal like this in the recent past: the Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT).

Ironically, and proving the point about how polluting projects tend to be clustered into the same low income, communities of color: GulfLink’s proposed location is just seven miles from where SPOT was approved. MARAD and USCG’s decision on SPOT was made over the objections of local residents, elected officials and tens of thousands of climate activists.

GulfLink is, if it’s possible, worse than SPOT because it requires a massive network of onshore fossil fuel infrastructure including above-ground storage tanks that hold 8.5 million barrels of oil — Which the company proposes to build in a floodplain that was just inundated during Hurricane Beryl. And then all that oil will will be pumped out 26.6 miles offshore through a new 42-inch pipeline to a floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico. There, the floating platform will load enormous supertankers called VLCCs.  

And all of this in a part of the US that is already experiencing more and more-severe climate fueled storms, hurricanes, and tidal surges. We have to stop this madness and the buildout of fossil fuel exports. Despite recent victories, we’re not yet winning the argument with the Biden Administration writ large. There are three ways you can help right now:

1. First, if you haven’t already, send a Comment to the Biden Administration opposing the GulfLink oil export project before the deadline later this month.
2. Second, if you want more victories over the fossil fuel finance and insurance industry, take action with us as part of the Summer of Heat! Our most recent action is calling on Citi’s credit card partners to drop dirty Citi, and there are more protests and actions planned this summer as Citi continues its crackdown on non-violent protest.
3. Make a plan to join us and friends from Beyond Extreme Energy, again, in Washington DC for the Fall of FERC on September 19 – when we’ll use the recent court victories above to try and break the pipeline of permits that’s expanding LNG exports and other fossil fuel infrastructure. You can RSVP for our planning call on August 26 to learn more or just RSVP here if you already know you want to attend.