Following an all-day public hearing that drew hundreds of opponents, a state commission voted Monday to reject the environmental impact report on a proposed $800-million floating liquefied natural gas terminal off the Ventura County coast -- an action that could effectively kill the project.
The state Lands Commission voted 2 to 1 to reject the environmental study and not issue a lease for the BHP Billiton project. Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and state Controller John Chiang, both commissioners, voted against the project.
Panelist Anne Sheehan, who represents state Finance Director Michael Genest, a Cabinet member to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, voted in support of the environmental report, stating the importance of bringing a liquefied natural gas plant to California.
But during the hearing, Garamendi , peppered a BHP Billiton representative with pointed questions about the project's environmental effects.
Garamendi challenged whether the energy company had done enough to reduce emissions that contribute to smog and haze as well as global warming. He questioned whether alternatives to the project -- including energy conservation, greater reliance on wind and solar power, and a bigger natural gas plant under construction in Baja California, Mexico -- were adequately considered. And he questioned the cost-effectiveness of extracting natural gas in Australia, chilling it and shipping it in tankers across the Pacific Ocean.
BHP Billiton spokesman Craig A. Moyer, a partner in the Los Angeles-based firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, told commissioners the project would make California's energy supply more reliable and diverse at a time when natural gas is increasingly being used to meet state power demands.
Further, Moyer said the project would be good for the state's environment. Natural gas burns cleaner than coal or oil. He said the project would slightly improve the state's air quality because the company had gone to great lengths to minimize emissions.
The so-called Cabrillo Port project cannot be built unless the commission and other regulatory bodies decide the 3,000-page environmental impact study is adequate and that BHP Billiton merits a permit to construct a pair of 23-mile pipelines to connect the floating terminal to the coast.
"This is the biggest decision on California's energy future in decades," said Mark Massara, California coastal director for the Sierra Club. "This has everything to do with what our coast will look like for decades to come."
