Last month the Biden Administration announced that it would resume selling leases for new oil and gas drilling on public lands.
This decision raises significant climate change and environmental justice concerns, particularly for those disadvantaged communities who may live near future drilling sites.
Our recent study on community exposures to oil and gas production shows that historical redlining has perpetuated patterns of environmental injustice. Redlined neighborhoods have nearly twice the density of oil and gas wells than otherwise comparable neighborhoods that were not redlined.
Our findings may partially explain how it is that Black and Latinx people are more likely to live near oil and gas development infrastructure today.
In light of these findings, policymakers should consider the scientific evidence of the risks posed by oil and gas production to public health, and how historical racist policies contributed to the health disparities we see today.
Redlining and environmental injustice
Many environmental problems disproportionately faced by communities of color and the poor in the U.S. are rooted in discriminatory policies put in place generations ago by local, state, and federal governments. One such policy is known as redlining, in which the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, in trying to revive the housing market in the 1930s in the wake of the Great Depression, graded and mapped how risky neighborhoods were for real estate investment.
Neighborhoods comprised of largely low-income, immigrant, or Black residents were deemed “hazardous” or “definitely declining” and mapped in red (i.e., redlined), while whiter and wealthier communities were considered “best” or “still desirable.”
A 2018 study in Los Angeles found that at least some Home Owners’ Loan Corporation officials explicitly considered the racial makeup of neighborhoods and the presence of oil and gas wells when making decisions about redlining, which influenced future locations of new oil and gas development. Officials gave the highest grade to one predominantly white Los Angeles neighborhood near oil and gas wells after local leaders agreed to impose “racial restrictions in perpetuity,” to keep the neighborhood white while also stopping future oil and gas well drilling. In our recent study, we found that neighborhoods that already had wells were more likely to be redlined, and, in turn, redlined neighborhoods were more likely to have new oil and gas wells drilled after the policy went into effect.
Although redlining may not have directly caused these disparities, this discriminatory policy codified and accelerated them through disinvestment in already struggling neighborhoods, which, in turn, has shaped the present-day location of environmental hazards and associated health risks. In terms of oil and gas production, research shows that drilling and operating oil and gas wells worsens air pollution and puts residents living nearby at risk of respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, depression, and poor birth outcomes, including premature birth.
Shifting away from oil and gas
In California, policymakers, affected residents, and advocates are debating how to protect communities and workers from the impacts of nearby oil and gas production operations, including limiting new drilling permits and establishing buffer zones between active wells and the places where people live, work, play, and go to school. As the state seeks to phase out oil and gas production and prohibit drilling in residential neighborhoods, policymakers should account for the ongoing adverse impact of historical redlining on the environmental quality of communities of color.
This requires that decision-makers engage fence-line communities near oil and gas production facilities to reduce exposures. It also requires expanding programs such as California’s Climate Investments, which has invested over $4.5 billion in transformative, environmental justice projects that address climate change, including renewable energy initiatives. Similarly, the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, modeled closely on California’s program, would require that at least 40% of federal investments in climate-change mitigation and clean energy projects benefit environmental justice communities.
The worsening climate crisis, along with strained energy supply chains due to rising global tensions amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, make clear the urgent need for the U.S. to shift away from oil and gas production and toward renewable energy sources. Equally important is that hastening this energy transition would go a long way toward advancing environmental justice for those communities who have endured the health impacts of oil and gas development for generations.
David J.X. González is a Ford Foundation and University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Rachel Morello-Frosch is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Morello-Frosch is also a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Banner photo: UCLA Law students and faculty participated in a toxic tour of Wilmington, CA, a predominantly Latinx neighborhood surrounded by the Port of Los Angeles, heavy industry, and an oil field in 2019. (Credit: Emmett Institute/flickr)
A federal appeals court has instructed the district court to dismiss a climate change lawsuit filed by youth plaintiffs against the U.S. government, denying them the chance to amend their case.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the lower court to dismiss the youth-led climate lawsuit Juliana v. United States.
Despite a 2020 ruling dismissing the case, the district court had allowed an amended lawsuit, which the appellate court ruled was against its mandate.
The ruling signifies the difficulty of bringing climate action lawsuits against the federal government, even as state-level cases like one in Montana have shown success.
Key quote:
“We held that the Juliana plaintiffs lack standing to bring their claims and told the district court to dismiss.”
— Judges Mark Bennett, Ryan Nelson, and Eric Miller, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Why this matters:
The court's decision reinforces the challenges of pursuing legal action against the federal government on climate issues, blunting efforts to push for policy changes to address the climate crisis. Read more: Youth v. Montana — Young adults speak up.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
Two studies reveal how genetic changes in bird populations in California respond to environmental threats, highlighting the potential for adaptation and the risks of genetic dilution.
The southwestern willow flycatcher has developed genetic traits for heat tolerance in response to changing climate conditions, although its population is still declining.
Savannah sparrows face the dilution of their salt-tolerant adaptations due to gene flow from inland birds, threatening their ability to survive in saltmarsh environments.
Both studies underline the importance of natural history collections in understanding and addressing these environmental challenges.
Key quote: “These genetic changes are imperceptible to the human eye ... [but] we were able to identify several genes that are likely involved in heat tolerance and the birds’ ability to effectively dissipate heat in humid environments.”
— Sheela Turbek, postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University
New regulations released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aim to tackle the cleanup of legacy coal ash ponds, requiring stringent measures to prevent groundwater contamination.
The regulations extend 2015 rules, demanding closure of coal ash ponds that contact groundwater.
Utilities are mandated to monitor and rectify any leaks, and ensure groundwater is cleaned from contaminants.
The new rules could face challenges due to varying state regulations and potential political shifts post-election.
Key quote:
"EPA’s new rule is aimed at cleaning up coal plants once and for all."
— Lisa Evans, senior attorney at Earthjustice
Why this matters:
Legacy coal ash ponds, the often unlined pits where power plants have historically disposed of the ash residue from burning coal, pose significant environmental and health risks, particularly to groundwater systems. Over time, these ponds can leak hazardous contaminants like arsenic, mercury, and lead into nearby groundwater, which many communities rely on for drinking, bathing, and irrigation.
The NBA's environmental focus includes significant changes to team travel, fan engagement, and venue operations to tackle climate change.
Efforts span from reducing game-related travel to promoting regenerative agriculture practices in food sourcing at NBA venues.
New strategies involve more than emission cuts, with initiatives like using renewable energy at events and supporting sustainable farming practices.
Key quote:
"We're pretty bullish in believing that food systems is the key to unlock this."
— Justin Zeulner, founder and president of The Wave Foundation
Why this matters:
Addressing climate change requires influential entities like the NBA to lead by example, implementing practical solutions that others might follow. Their broad reach allows them to influence the sports industry as well as global environmental practices.
Experts and lawmakers, during a Senate hearing, revealed a strategic shift by the fossil fuel industry from outright climate denial to more sophisticated disinformation campaigns aimed at protecting profits while undermining climate policy.
A Senate report, backed by subpoenaed documents, showcases how the fossil fuel sector transitioned from denying climate change to deceiving the public through disinformation.
Lawmakers cited the industry's greenwashing efforts, emphasizing its dual messaging: acknowledging climate change privately while publicly downplaying it.
Democrats argued that oil companies should bear the financial burden of climate change impacts, rather than taxpayers.
Key quote:
“In my view, it should not be state government or the federal government having to pick up the bill. I think it’s time to ask the people who caused that problem, who lied about that situation, to pick up the bill.”
— Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders
Why this matters:
The fossil fuel industry's influence on climate change narratives has impacted public understanding and delayed policy action, contributing to worsening climate crises. Read more: Climate change denial and me.
Clean energy technology is making strides, providing a hopeful outlook for sustainable development.
The environmental impact of livestock farming highlights the importance of finding solutions for food production that align with sustainability goals.
The politics of implementing large-scale climate initiatives remain complex and challenging, but progress in technology is opening doors to potential solutions.
Key quote:
"These are tractable problems. They’re not easy problems. They’re really, really difficult to tackle, but they’re tractable."
— Hannah Ritchie, lead researcher at Our World in Data.
