Here’s a new way “entitled” fracking fossil fuel companies have gamed the system for LNG exports, currently to “Free Trade Agreement nations”, which will probably include India and China if the Trans-Pacific Parternship (TPP) gets approved. Even without exports, methane pipelines are to sell the “large amount of natural gas in the U.S.” produced by “the shale revolution”, which is fracking. The Sabal Trail pipeline isn’t about any alleged energy need in Florida. It’s about profits from fracking at the expense of your land.

Department of Energy notice 6 May 2013, Authority to Import and Export Gas: Constellation Energy Commodities Group Inc., et al.

The Office of Fossil Energy (FE) of the Department of Energy gives notice that during March 2013, it issued orders granting authority to import and export natural gas and liquefied natural gas and vacating prior authority. These orders are summarized in the attached appendix and may be found on the FE Web site at http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/gasregulation/authorizations/Orders-2012.html. They are also available for inspection and copying in the Office of Fossil Energy, Office of Natural Gas Regulatory Activities, Docket Room 3E-033, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-9478. The Docket Room is open between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.

Issued in Washington, DC, on May 6, 2013.
John A. Anderson,
Manager, Natural Gas Regulatory Activities, Office of Oil and Gas Global Security and Supply, Office of Fossil Energy.

That web page includes a list of “DOE/FE Orders Granting Import/Export Authorizations”. The export orders are mostly for export to Canada and Mexico, plus two for “export LNG by vessel” from “the Lake Charles LNG Terminal” and “the proposed Gasfin LNG Export Project in Parish, Louisiana” to “Free Trade Agreement nations.”

Here’s DoE’s list of current NATURAL GAS IMPORT & EXPORT REGULATION – FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (FTA) COUNTRIES AND LNG EXPORTS:

FTA Countries that Require National Treatment for Trade in Natural Gas -As of October 31, 2012, the United States has FTAs that require national treatment for trade in natural gas with Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Oman, Panama, Peru, Republic of Korea and Singapore. Panama is the most recent country with which the United States has entered into a FTA that requires national treatment for trade in natural gas, effective October 31, 2012. Not all countries that have a FTA with the United States require national treatment for trade in natural gas (i.e. Costa Rica and Israel). A list of all countries with which the United States has a FTA can be found at:
http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements.

And if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) gets passed, as Spectra Energy’s home-town Houston Ted Poe (R TX-002) is pushing as chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, even more countries will be “Free Trade Agreement nations”, open for LNG export, probably including India and China, the two biggest markets in the world.

Is it any wonder that one of FERC’s own Commissioners, Tony Clark from fracking North Dakota, told FERC’s oversight House Committee on Energy and Commerce,

The large amount of natural gas in the U.S. is also creating an impetus for something that was nearly unimaginable ten or fifteen years ago, LNG export, as opposed to import terminals. This is an area of significant workload increase for the commission.

And he emphasized how that fracked methane will get to those LNG export terminals:

As you might expect, the shale revolution in both liquids and natural gas production is having a tremendous impact on the work of the FERC. We see this in a number of our different jurisdictional areas, which I will now highlight.

One of the areas where the FERC is seeing an impact on our operations as a result of these activities is with regard to pipelines.

As a former state regulator in an energy producing state, I saw first-hand the importance of pipelines in serving new and expanding production areas.

There you have it. Fracking “the shale revolution” has produced a “large amount of natural gas in the U.S.” that FERC and DoE are enabling selling for the fossil fuel companies’ profits. Selling somewhere, preferably overseas where the prices are higher, as T. Boone Pickens told us.

‘The producers have gone out and drilled for the natural gas. They should be entitled to get the best markets in the world, so let them have it,”

The Sabal Trail pipeline is not driven by any alleged need for power in Florida: it’s all about fracking profits, and don’t be surprised if that involves exports. After all, the fossil fuel companies are “entitled”. Your title to your land? That’s just a scrap of paper to be swept aside.

Unless we all fight back.

The FERC Scoping Meetings continue next week in Alabama.

-jsq

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