Huge new oil export terminal planned for Texas coast

 Houston Chronicle:

The Biden administration has approved plans to build the nation’s largest oil export terminal off the Gulf Coast of Texas, which would add 2 million barrels per day to the U.S. oil export capacity.

The approval by the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration was filed in the federal register on Monday without any public announcement, a day after the United Nations’ annual climate conference wrapped up in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt.

Earthworks, an environmental nonprofit, spotted the filing and publicized approval of the Sea Port Oil Terminal on Tuesday.

“President Biden cannot lead on combating climate change, protecting public health or advocating for environmental justice while simultaneously allowing fossil fuel companies to lock-in decades of fossil fuel extraction,” the group’s senior policy advocate, Kelsey Crane, said in a statement.

In its 94-page decision, the Maritime Administration wrote, “The construction and operation of the Port is in the national interest because the Project will benefit employment, economic growth, and U.S. energy infrastructure resilience and security. The Port will provide a reliable source of crude oil to U.S. allies in the event of market disruption.”

...

I suspect this is a recognition of the need to supply Europe with oil they can no longer get from Russia.  It is a recognition of the fact that his original anti-energy position was a mistake that has had dire consequences for European allies and for his own political standing in the US with drivers across the country.  What he also should be doing is opening up more federally controlled sites for drilling to increase production.  

I think the climate kooks he was previously listening to have been serially wrong about the use of fossil fuels and their impact on warming the planet.  There should also be recognition of the obvious limitations of alternative energy like wind and solar and the battery production needed to make them more reliable.

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