Federal lawmakers said they fear a cash-strapped Coast Guard lacks the resources to protect a growing list of liquefied natural gas facilities nationwide, including a proposed terminal on Baltimore?s Sparrows Point peninsula.
Electedofficials met at a House Coast Guard subcommittee hearing in Baltimore on Monday to discuss the agency?s ability to handle security on a growing roster of LNG terminals nationwide despite an $8 billion deficit. The Coast Guard already enforces security buffer zones, conducts on-board sweeps and provides armed escorts for five terminals operating in the United States.
More than a dozen others have been approved and 27 more have been proposed, including a $400 million facility off the Patapsco River near the Key Bridge.
“We?re stretching and stretching and stretching, but if the resources aren?t coming in like they should be, we?ve got a problem,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the committee?s chairman.
Coast Guard Capt. Brian Kelley described a new policy requiring plant operators to share security costs, including a plant in Calvert County?s Cove Point run by Dominion Energy. There, Kelley said, Dominion is supplying security boats, and the Guard is training local workers to patrol.
Kelley described the system as “burden-sharing,” a phrase U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., changed to “burden-shifting.”
“We?re training the sheriff to be the Coast Guard by proxy,” Mikulski said.
Under the Baltimore plan, massive tankers would carry ultra-cold LNG to the harbor. The gas would be transferred to an on-shore terminal, where it would be revaporized and sent through an 88-mile pipeline into southern Pennsylvania via Harford County.
Local officials at the hearing, including Gov. Martin O?Malley and Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith, said local resources are insufficient for a large-scale explosion or terrorist attack at the site, a little more than a mile from the Turners Station neighborhood.
Other officials were worried about the impact on summer traffic as tankers passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and criticized the approval process ? almost exclusively the authority of the Federal Energy Regulation Commission ? as too limited.
Calling the process “inclusive, comprehensive and transparent,” FERC Director Richard Hoffman said approval heavily relies on a proposal?s ability to meet buffer-zone requirements and a “waterway suitability” study conducted by the Coast Guard.
That report for the Sparrows Point plan has not been completed. Kelley said he has requested more information from the company proposing the plant, Virginia-based AES Corp., but did not set a deadline for a response.
