A federal appeals court has struck down a Baltimore County law seen as giving opponents of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal on Sparrows Point their best chance of stopping the project.
Eastern Baltimore County community activists and elected officials who have been fighting the LNG terminal since it was proposed more than two years ago by AES Corp. criticized the ruling yesterday and expressed continued opposition to the project.
The 10-page opinion of the three judges for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sides with lawyers for AES who say the county overstepped its authority to create zoning regulations and interfered with the National Gas Act.
The ruling comes just weeks after federal regulators recommended conditional approval for the LNG terminal proposed at the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard and an 88-mile pipeline to be built to southern Pennsylvania. AES is a power supply company based in Arlington, Va.
Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. and county attorneys were reviewing the opinion to decide whether to appeal.
"This setback will not deter the county executive from continuing to fight this plant," said Donald I. Mohler III, a spokesman for Smith. "He has said and continues to believe this is the wrong plant, at the wrong place, at the wrong time."
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski also criticized the court finding yesterday in a statement, and Gov. Martin O'Malley pledged to work with federal and local officials to stop the project.
"The LNG facility at Sparrows Point is a threat to our homeland security, a threat to our environment and Chesapeake Bay and a threat to the families of eastern Baltimore County," O'Malley said in the written statement.
The Baltimore County Council passed an amendment to its Coastal Zone Management plan last year that prohibited LNG plants and other facilities, such as oil refineries,in environmentally sensitive coastal areas.
The state Critical Area Commission adopted the change in June, and that same month U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett upheld the county law.
Lawyers for AES appealed, saying that the county is attempting to circumvent the federal approval process for energy projects.
Officials from AES provided no immediate reaction to the court ruling yesterday. "We will issue a statement once we have more thoroughly reviewed the broad implications of the 4th Circuit's decision," Kent Morton, the Sparrows Point project manager for AES, wrote in a statement.
