NO to LNG

Few Local Benefits

These jobs are not for locals

The permanent jobs associated with the LNG export terminals will likely be high-trained positions and not locally hired. Managers of the companies mention the need for "experienced labor." At least one of the LNG companies is proposing a "plug and play" system in which the LNG equipment is built overseas and transported to Brownsville on a barge. This would, according to the fact sheet, "minimize impact" to labor markets. 

A speculative industry with an unreliable future

Because natural gas costs so much to extract, refine, liquefy, transport and then regasify, U.S. LNG exports are only profitable if gas prices outside the U.S. are very high.  When prices in Asia or in Europe are low due to OPEC's actions or to mild weather, profit margins are simply too low to sustain U.S. exports.  Many market analysts, including Moody's Investor Services, have predicted that few planned U.S. LNG export terminals will ever be built.  Many also note that the LNG market is likely to remain volatile and could be glutted for years. The LNG projects in the Port of Brownsville could very well tie the Rio Grande Valley to the boom-bust fossil fuel economy and saddle us with higher unemployment and abandoned industrial sites.

The LNG companies will not pay their fair share

The LNG companies are negotiating with Cameron County for a ten-year property tax abatement. That means that they will not be contributing to Port Isabel ISD schools, nor to the roads that their trucks will inevitably wear down, nor to the law enforcement who will back up their security operations.  We the taxpayers will essentially be subsidizing them.

An explanation of how the liquefaction plant will be constructed overseas and shipped to the Port of Brownsville site from a May 2014 Texas LNG slide show

Brownsville Herald headline April 29, 2015

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE??