Court rejects effort to block LNG terminal

FALL RIVER, Mass. – A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by officials in Massachusetts and Rhode Island to block a proposed LNG terminal from being built in Fall River.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly and Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch filed the lawsuit in September, asking the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston to order federal transportation authorities to adopt standards for where LNG terminals can be located.

The court denied the request and lectured Reilly and Lynch for prematurely asking the court to step in before first asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to set minimum safety standards.

“One might expect, for example, that the petitioners could ask the agency to adopt site safety standards, arguing that the present standards are inadequate, and then seek judicial review if and when the agency denied this request,” the court wrote.

Reilly spokeswoman Beth Stone defended the lawsuit.

“We brought this action to urge the Department of Transportation to set safety standards that encourage citing LNG terminals far away from population centers,” she said. “Weaver’s Cove is not a place for an LNG terminal.”

Since the lawsuit, Reilly has filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Transportation contesting their standards for citing LNG terminals.

Critics fear the LNG terminal could endanger residents in the densely populated area. Almost 64,000 people in Rhode Island and Massachusetts live along a tanker route proposed by Weaver’s Cove Energy and Hess LNG.