Governor’s Decision on LNG Is Due by Monday

• Still No Word from Sacramento

BY HANS LAETZ

With a deadline approaching next week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not yet ready to disclose what he will do with the Cabrillo Port hot potato that was tossed in his lap last month.

But legal observers are shaking their heads and continue to say the governor has no power to approve the plant, and that even if he gives it a formal OK, the project’s state and federal applications will both remain dead.

At issue is the request by Australian energy conglomerate BHP Billiton to anchor an LNG receiving and gasification factory ship in the Pacific Ocean within sight of Malibu’s northern coastline. Although the $1 billion project was shot down by a pair of autonomous state agencies last month, federal law still requires action from the governor.

A spokesman for the governor’s office, speaking for background purposes only, said this week that the governor is expected to make a determination at the end of the 45-day review period, but a formal announcement of when that may happen has not been made yet.

Even a decision by the governor to do nothing is an affirmative step, as the federal government’s Deepwater Ports Act will view that silence as a pocket approval, one legal expert said.

Under several Byzantine and conflicting state and federal laws, the state permit required for Cabrillo Port was killed April 9 by the Lands Commission, along with the environmental impact report necessary for construction. Those decisions cannot be appealed to the governor, and attorneys say there are no grounds for a court challenge to the state panel’s judgment that the project is simply not desirable.

However, BHP Billiton officials continue to say they are considering their legal options.

Meanwhile, the companion federal approval process clock is also ticking, even though the federal permit is stalled after it was unanimously rejected by the state Coastal Commission April 12. BHP Billiton has until mid-August to ask the White House to overrule that decision, as the Bush administration has the power to revive the federal process.

Lawyers say the governor’s opinion on the presently dead state permit is due within 45 days after a federal Maritime Administration hearing that was held April 4. According to a statement by the governor’s chief deputy legal affairs secretary, Louis Mauro, on April 10, that action “is due by [Monday] May 21.”