Of course, the Garfield County commissioners have written a letter of support for the Jordan Cove Liquid Natural Gas Connector project. Their oil and gas patrons in Texas expect nothing less.
Jordan Cove is the proposal of a Canadian firm, Pembino, for a pipeline from the gas fields in northwestern Colorado to a port near Coos Bay, Oregon, for shipping overseas. The plan is before the Federal Energy Regulation Commission, which rejected it twice in 2016.
The commissioner arguments for the project include reducing the Far East’s dependence on Middle Eastern and Russian energy sources and combating climate change by replacing harmful emissions, presumably coal. The Far East is reducing its dependence on fossil fuels the way we should be, by lowering demand switching to renewables. That’s why Pembino has no contract with the countries they’re supposed to be shipping to.
When are the commissioners and other industry supporters gonna get the message the total carbon footprint of natural gas, when extraction techniques are taken into consideration, are just as bad, if not worse, than coal? In this case, Pembino’s customers get to burn a cleaner fuel while we here in Colorado endure the methane, benzene and other pollutants produced by natural gas extraction, while contributing to climate change.
Admit it, commissioners, you couldn’t care less about Far Eastern dependence on foreign energy sources or climate change. All you care about is paying back the oil and gas industry for the contributions they made to your campaigns.
Fred Malo Jr.
Carbondale