Every fully operational liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the US has violated federal pollution limits in recent years, a new report has found.
The analysis of public records comes as the Trump administration is aiming to fast-track the approval of new export terminals in an attempt to sell more domestic LNG to Europe and Asia. Joe Biden had previously placed a pause on LNG exports, which Donald Trump lifted on the first day of his return to office.
“The LNG industry portrays itself as environmentally friendly, but companies do not consistently comply with air and water pollution control laws that LNG terminals must follow,” says the report from the Environmental Integrity Project, a non-profit research organization.
The Guardian has contacted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for comment.
The United States has been the world’s largest LNG exporter since 2023. The US president has aimed to boost exports even further, including by directing agencies to speed the approval of new terminals and by threatening foreign countries with steep tariffs if they refuse to purchase LNG from the US.
Late last year, seven US LNG export terminals were fully operational: three in Louisiana, two in Texas, and one each in Maryland and Georgia.
The New Fortress Energy LNG terminal near the port of San Juan in Puerto Nuevo, Puerto Rico, on 6 August. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Between October 2022 and July 2025, all seven of those terminals have been in noncompliance with the Clean Air Act for at least one quarter, according to the analysis of data from the EPA and state governments.
“Given the LNG industry’s poor compliance record, state and federal agencies should be slowing down and more carefully scrutinizing new permit applications instead of speeding up permit reviews,” said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project.
Some plants were in violation more often than others. The most frequent offenders, the Sabine Pass and Calcasieu Pass terminals, both in Cameron, Louisiana, have been out of compliance with certain air pollution standards under the Clean Air Act since 2022.
But the most enforcement orders – and the highest financial penalties – have been levied against Texas’s Freeport LNG terminal, which saw a major explosion in June 2022 that forced the facility to shutter for eight months. State and federal regulators issued $493,804 in penalties against the plant after the explosion, and the facility saw an additional $175,800 in fines in the two years prior.
Five of the seven LNG export terminals were also in noncompliance with the Clean Water Act during that same period, with four of the terminals breaching the regulation for at least two quarters between April 2022 and July 2025.
In some cases, the violations involved the proven emission of illegal amounts of bacteria, zinc, oil and other pollutants into waterways. In other cases, terminal managers failed to submit their monitoring reports for waterway discharge. Cove Point LNG in Maryland, for instance, has an active wastewater permit, yet the facility has not filed reports on its wastewater discharge since 2017, the report says.
The review shows that export terminals routinely breach key environmental protection laws, the authors say.
“These findings are absolutely not surprising to anyone who has spent time near these facilities,” said Anne Rolfes, executive director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which opposes fossil fuel buildout.
Despite this evidence, managers of three of the worst-offending LNG terminals are seeking authorization for major expansions in the coming years.
Among them are Sabine Pass and Cameron LNG, both in Louisiana, which have been in noncompliance with the Clean Air Act for 12 and 11 of the past 12 quarters, respectively, and Texas’s Corpus Christi LNG, which has had nine water pollution violations within the past five years.
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Venture Global, the company behind Louisiana’s Calcasieu Pass terminal – which has also been in noncompliance with the Clean Air Act every quarter for the last three years – is also planning to build two new LNG terminals nearby.
“The consequences of allowing Venture Global to build those could be devastating,” said Rolfes.
The Guardian has contacted Venture Global for comment.
In addition to those planned expansions and new terminals, four new LNG terminals are already under construction, three in Texas and one in Louisiana. One expansion of the Elba Liquefaction terminal in Georgia is also under way.
These five projects are already on track to increase the country’s LNG exports from the US by 60% annually and create more opportunities to put communities at risk. And companies have also proposed another 28 projects – 19 new export terminals and nine expansions of existing facilities – which could further threaten health.
The rapid growth of the LNG industry is also likely to hurt consumers, the new report’s authors say, citing a Biden-era Department of Energy study which found that increased LNG exports will increase domestic natural gas prices for Americans by more than 30%.
This expansions will also harm the climate. Exported LNG emits far more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, despite fossil fuel industry claims that it is a cleaner alternative, one major study found last year.
“In a sane world, we would stop permitting any more gas export facilities right now, immediately,” said Rolfes.
