50,000 People Urge Biden Admin to Reject ‘Archaic’ Oil Terminal in Houston Area

Before the comment period ended on Monday, more than 50,000 individuals and 30 organizations urged the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration to reject the application for a sprawling new oil export project in the Houston metropolitan area that would exacerbate deadly air pollution along the Texas coast while worsening the broader climate emergency.

Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips now has 45 days to submit a record of decision, in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard, for the deep-water port license application for the so-called Sea Port Oil Terminal (SPOT), which seeks to build new fossil fuel infrastructure in already overburdened communities in Harris and Brazoria counties despite climate scientists’ repeated warnings that doing so is incompatible with preserving a livable planet.

SPOT “is an archaic project” that “must be stopped,” Sue Page, a resident of Surfside Beach in Brazoria County, said in a statement. “To build infrastructure for almost 100 miles on land and offshore and tear through important ecosystems, wildlife habitats, and my own home in Surfside Beach is wrong.”

The proposed terminal is bound to lead to “oil spills and leaks, noise pollution, [and] diminished and harmful air quality,” said Page, who added that the “true cost” of the project “is my community’s health and well-being.”

Earthworks, one of the groups that submitted comments highly critical of the federal government’s environmental impact statement (EIS), summarized the likely consequences of the project:

Proposed by Enterprise and Enbridge, SPOT would export 2 million barrels of domestic crude oil per day for global export via Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC). The project would increase toxic air pollution in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria region, which already suffers from air quality that fails to meet [Environmental Protection Agency] health standards, and poses considerable risk of a major oil spill onshore and in Gulf waters that are still recovering from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Construction of pipelines threatens critically endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles that nest on Surfside Beach.

Gulf Coast communities are hit the hardest by the climate crisis, which is caused by emissions from fossil fuel production and use. SPOT will increase these emissions, further harming this region through climate-related disasters such as hurricanes, drought, and extreme heat. The proposed project poses a ​​significant threat to sensitive ecosystems, fishing, hunting, cultural, and recreational resources that are endemic to the Gulf Coast and its local economy.

Melanie Oldham of Citizens for Clean Air and Water in Brazoria County implored the Biden administration to “choose our health and our climate over the greed of Enterprise and Enbridge, and deny permits to the SPOT project and all similar fossil fuel export terminals proposed in Gulf Coast communities.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.