By Rich Heidorn Jr.

WASHINGTON — Anti-gas protester Ted Glick has been thrown out of FERC open meetings so many times that he’s no longer allowed in.

So, on Thursday morning, he and fellow protester Drew Hudson climbed a large ladder and took up residence on the three-story awning over the building’s main entrance, dropping a banner calling for renaming the agency the “Federal Renewable Energy Commission.”

The protest was timed for the commission’s monthly open meeting, at which the commissioners voted 3-1 to approve two additional LNG export projects. The meeting was interrupted twice by other members of the protest group, Beyond Extreme Energy, who were led out of the meeting room by security.

Glick and Hudson broadcast their protest from the awning via Facebook Live, saying that LNG export projects will be rendered obsolete as the nation moves to 100% renewable energy to combat climate change.

FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee said he sympathized with the protesters’ climate concerns but that LNG exports provide net environmental benefits.

“This was a very big deal,” he said after joining with fellow Republican Bernard McNamee and Democrat Cheryl LaFleur to approve the Driftwood (CP17-117, et. al.) and Port Arthur (CP17-20, et. al.) LNG projects and associated pipelines. Democrat Richard Glick — no relation to the protester — dissented.

The Driftwood project in Calcasieu Parish, La., will export an estimated 27.6 million metric tons of LNG annually, while the Port Arthur, Texas, project has a capacity of 13.5 million metric tons per year. There are currently 10 LNG export projects pending before the commission.

The U.S., which became a net exporter of natural gas in 2017, will see its role grow this year, FERC’s Adam Bennett said during a presentation of the commission’s annual State of the Markets report. “By the end of this year there should be six fully operational LNG export terminals here in the U.S.,” he said. “This year alone, domestic export capability is likely to double.”

Chatterjee said U.S. exports have “geopolitical” impacts, calling the LNG approvals “a very bad day for Russia,” which has sought to use its natural gas exports as leverage over its European neighbors.

In a press conference after the meeting, Chatterjee said he respects the passion of the protesters, “particularly the folks who risked their physical safety to climb the building to make the point that they felt was important to make.”

“I’ve been very vocal that I care deeply about climate change and the need to mitigate global emissions,” he said, contending that U.S. LNG is “being used to displace dirtier sources of energy in other parts of the world.”

“If people roll their eyes at me because I’m saying that the U.S. movement in LNG has … a positive impact on climate and carbon emissions, we’re never going to be able to have a reasonable conversation here. I’m trying to be constructive. It is significant and is not something that should be dismissed.”

Chatterjee and McNamee have won LaFleur’s votes on LNG projects since February by agreeing to include in the orders calculations of the direct greenhouse gas emissions from the liquefaction process.

But Chatterjee continued to reject calls by Commissioner Glick to quantify the downstream GHG impacts of such projects, saying it could leave the orders open to reversal. “I am not certain we have the capacity to do that. It could potentially jeopardize the orders in court,” he said.

At the March commission meeting, Glick rejected Chatterjee’s claim of a bipartisan “breakthrough” on the commission’s evaluation of LNG projects, joining with LaFleur to say the panel was still ignoring the projects’ impact on climate change. (See Glick Disputes FERC ‘Breakthrough’ on LNG Projects.)

Glick said the commission could require LNG exporters to mitigate their impacts on GHG emissions, as it does on environmental impacts on land, water and endangered species. “I think everyone knows what’s going on here,” the commissioner said. “This is climate change. That’s why we can’t talk about it.”

LaFleur said she has included in her concurring opinions her own analysis of the projects’ climate impacts as an alternative to dissenting.

“In spite of the fact that we have reached compromises on some language … it’s getting harder, not easier, to do that,” she said. “We treat climate change in our environmental analyses differently than every other environmental impact, and I think we’re just waiting for the court to impose requirements on us that could add unnecessary complexities and legal risk to these very big projects.”