LNG Watch

Keeping Score

BY HANS LAETZ

Cabrillo Port is dead. Or is it?

Confusing announcements from the governor’s office (see page 3), Environmental Defense Center, the California Coastal Commission and BHP Billiton muddied the waters after Monday’s landmark rejection of the Australian company’s LNG project’s pipeline application.

BHP Billiton wasn’t talking beyond its statement that it was considering all options.

But late Tuesday, attorneys for BHP Billiton tried to have the project’s airing removed from this week’s Coastal Commission agenda. CCC Executive Director Peter Douglas said in a telephone interview that the delay request was denied.

“BHP’s lawyers spoke with our lawyers, and made the request to pull the item,” Douglas said. “They were told that would be impossible unless BHP agreed to drop its entire application, as there is no mechanism under federal law for the matter to be delayed.”

Other attorneys have said the federal law is more than confusing, as it creates a two-track state and federal approval process for any proposed deepwater port. Monday’s action by the California State Lands Commission rejected the final environmental impact report, and separately refused to allow BHPB’s gas pipelines to cross state tidelands.

Here’s where it gets complicated: although CSLC action killed the pipeline permit, federal laws require the state to continue processing the state permit request. That means Coastal must still hold a daylong hearing Thursday on a project request that the federal government may have no way of approving.

And it means the governor must still come up with a public decision on an LNG ship that analysts say has no chance of being built.

BHP Billiton could sue to overturn the State Lands Commission vote, but winning such a suit would be unprecedented and could take years in the courts, attorneys said.