Soaring Gas Exports Are Putting the Squeeze on Gulf Coast Habitat
Local residents have formed unlikely alliances to rein in the booming LNG industry, which they say is devouring land for sensitive species while putting communities at risk.
Before retiring from his career as an oil and gas engineer, John Allaire bought a slice of paradise: more than a half-mile of oceanfront in Louisiana’s Cameron Parish, backed by 300-plus acres of marsh where he could gather shrimp and watch bobcats prowl. “This was my little place to be quiet and stargaze and fish and hunt,” he says.
Nowadays a constant rumbling disturbs his peace. A mile away, a company called Venture Global cools natural gas to -260 degrees Fahrenheit, converting it to a liquid to be shipped overseas. At all hours, on a site that not long ago held dozens of acres of prime Eastern Black Rail habitat, flare stacks shoot flames sky-high. “At night it’s lit up like Las Vegas over there,” Allaire says.
So much for the golden years he imagined. Allaire and his neighbors now live at the epicenter of a boom in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. In the past decade energy firms have built five terminals along the Gulf Coast, and around 20 new plants are planned or under construction, along with others in Alaska, Georgia, and Florida. Allaire is lending his testimony and support to efforts to stop the build-out—which includes a second phase of Venture Global’s facility and a project from another company, Commonwealth LNG, that would share his property line.
Opponents say the LNG industry’s growth is a bad deal for the American public. In December a Department of Energy (DOE) report found that its unchecked expansion could raise household energy bills by more than $100 a year by 2050 and produce a carbon footprint that is more than one-quarter of the country’s total emissions today. On the Gulf Coast, traffic from gas tankers has degraded once vital fisheries, locals say, while sprawling complexes fragment habitat and pollute communities of color already dotted with refineries and other industry.
“It would be untouched Black Rail habitat that is potentially going to have a massive facility on top of it."
“If they do reach their objective and build all of these facilities, that will be it for this part of the world,” says Anne Rolfes, director of the environmental health and justice group Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “It will be an industrial wasteland.”
That prospect seems increasingly likely. In the past decade, both Democrat and Republican administrations have embraced LNG exports as a way to strengthen the nation’s economy and global influence, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A spike in gas production, enabled by fracking, fueled the industry’s rapid growth. Before its first export terminal outside of Alaska opened in 2016, the United States was a net natural gas importer. By 2023, it was the world’s top exporter.
In early 2024, President Biden shifted gears. Under election-year pressure to defuse what climate activists called a “carbon bomb,” he temporarily paused permitting decisions for most LNG exports while the DOE took a fresh look at whether they are in the national interest. The report, issued in December, not only raised climate and cost concerns—it also found that existing export capacity can meet global demand. Although some experts criticized that analysis, environmentalists say the economics are far from a slam dunk for LNG exporters. “We’re confident that in most cases the public interest calculus is not going to fall on the side of the project,” says Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Gillian Giannetti.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration is throwing its weight behind the industry. On taking office, the president issued orders to boost fossil fuel production and brush aside climate change and environmental justice as factors in government decisions. He also ordered the DOE to resume LNG permitting. Meanwhile, environmentalists are pushing back however they can to stop projects. The DOE’s findings that export terminals are not only unnecessary but also harmful can support legal challenges, Giannetti says.
Ongoing lawsuits are contesting the two planned facilities in Cameron Parish, where federally threatened Eastern Black Rails are particularly at risk. The marsh birds are so elusive that no one was sure they bred in Louisiana until Erik Johnson, Audubon Delta’s conservation science director, led coastal surveys in 2017. The most important rail stronghold, the data showed, is where Commonwealth plans to build. “It would be untouched Black Rail habitat that is potentially going to have a massive facility on top of it,” Johnson says.
The situation is so urgent that a fossil-fuel industry veteran finds himself working with environmentalists and fishers to protect the region they all love. Allaire views natural gas as vital to modern life—for making plastics, fertilizer, and more. LNG exports are different: “Every molecule of hydrocarbon that I helped drill for, produce, and refine was all for domestic production,” he says. “It wasn’t a money grab to send our limited natural resources overseas.”
This story originally ran in the Spring 2025 issue as “Under Pressure.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.