Congressman Barney Frank
Representing Massachusetts' 4th District

Frank and McGovern Announce Critical Step To Blocking LNG Facility
August 19, 2010

Congressmen Barney Frank and Jim McGovern today announced that they have made a very significant and perhaps decisive step forward in efforts to block the construction of a Liquified Natural Gas terminal on the Taunton River in Fall River.  McGovern and Frank, along with Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri, Fall River Mayor Michael Flanagan, and virtually all state and local government officials representing the Fall River area, have strongly opposed the LNG proposal and have fought it since it was first introduced eight years ago.

The mechanism by which Frank and McGovern in the House, working with Senators Kerry and Brown in the Senate, will help definitively end consideration of the LNG project is through a provision Frank and McGovern have written for the Energy and Water Appropriations bill in the House.  The provision would ban any federal funds from being used to further the LNG project in any way, including a prohibition on using funds even to advance the permitting process.  If the bill is signed into law, the long fight to stop the LNG terminal will effectively be over.

The House subcommittee with jurisdiction over this part of the Energy and Water bill has given strong assurances to Frank and McGovern that a close version of the language will be included in the larger bill.
It would be highly unusual for this bill, which governs energy and water spending across the country, to fail to pass the House.

Congressmen Frank and McGovern are working with Senators Kerry and Brown to see that the provision is included in the Senate version of the bill.

The language submitted by McGovern and Frank follows below.  The final language will not be released by the committee immediately, but it will be made available as soon as it is public.

“No funds made available by this Act may be used to take any action to authorize the construction of any liquefied natural gas terminal or its infrastructure to be located within 5 miles of the City of Fall River, Massachusetts, or to authorize vessels carrying liquefied natural gas to serve such terminal.”

Today’s announcement was made at a press conference at the beginning of a walking tour of the economic development area in Fall River.

A brief summary of efforts to block construction of the LNG terminal in Fall River:

Over 8 years ago Weavers Cove LNG proposed constructing a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, a city represented by Congressman Barney Frank and Congressman Jim McGovern.

This facility has been opposed at every level of local, state, and federal government.  The proposed facility would be located in a densely populated urban area and would receive LNG in large vessels after those ships make their way through over 17 nautical miles of navigationally challenging inland waterways, including the Narragansett Bay, Mount Hope Bay, and the Taunton River. This route will require several complex navigational maneuvers in order to pass under the bridges in the area.

In fact, the Coast Guard already had concluded that “extraordinary maneuvers” would be required to navigate the river, leaving no margin for navigational error, and it in fact denied the company's first two transit plans.  In response to Coast Guard rejections, the company modified its proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and proposed a 4 mile cryogenic pipeline culminating in a large LNG platform berth in the middle of Mt. Hope Bay, which straddles the Rhode Island border.

The project has had strong bipartisan opposition including former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, current Governor Deval Patrick, and Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri, as well as the Attorneys General and the entire Congressional delegations of both states.