The Week in the West: EPA revelation sparks crisis of faith in gas

On gas, common sense has prevailed for once – not a regular occurrence in Western Australia, where gas companies are basically gods and our politicians are the high-priest caste, offering various sacrifices to appease Woodside, Chevron, and the rest of the pantheon. We layfolk are told to take it on faith that fossil fuels will somehow save the world from climate damnation.

But Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has committed heresy, concluding that Woodside's proposal for the Browse gas project, more than 400 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, is "unacceptable". That's what the EPA said to Woodside in a February letter, unveiled by a FOI request from WAtoday. The letter ran to more than ten pages of reasons why Browse should be refused. An industry source said the EPA took issue with Browse's potential impacts on marine life at Scott Reef and the risk of an oil spill.

This is only a preliminary decision. EPA deputy chair Lee McIntosh told WAtoday Woodside had requested more time to respond to the findings, with the final decision to be published next year. One imagines Woodside is doing all it can to change the EPA's mind. "We continue to work with relevant regulators to progress environmental approvals for Browse," a company spokesperson told AAP.

There are project approvals for Browse outstanding at both state and federal levels. If the EPA sticks to its guns (and it will be hard to walk these concerns back now they've been publicised), both levels of government will face a dilemma. They can heed independent, scientific advice, or continue to bow down before Woodside.

We've been here before. As Peter Milne points out at WAtoday, the EPA recommended against Chevron's Gorgon project in 2006, but Mark McGowan, then WA Environment Minister, did not take heed. He allowed the project to go ahead, and Gorgon has since been an ecological disaster.

Will WA Premier Roger Cook and Environment Minister Reece Whitby do anything different when it comes to Browse?

When the news broke on Monday, Cook rattled off his normal pro-Woodside lines, which must be as familiar to him by now as the rosary is to a nun.

"We want it to go ahead," he said. "Browse would be an important part of not only WA’s gas supply, but making sure that we can assist our South East Asian and North Asian partners to decarbonise their economies through the ongoing supply of gas."

But when he was asked whether the project should go ahead if the EPA deemed it unacceptable, he responded, "No, it certainly shouldn’t," showing that a final recommendation against Browse would be a significant political hurdle. 

"The EPA are there to assess these projects and make sure that we can mitigate against any negative impacts … that’s why they are obviously in deep discussions with Woodside," Cook said.

By Thursday, he'd walked that back somewhat: “Final approval is only made by the minister for the environment after he receives the EPA’s advice and recommended conditions," he said in a statement.

“Only at that point, the minister will consider the extent to which any environmental risks can be managed.”

This seems to be how the WA government is intent on treating environmental risks: 'managing' them, rather than preventing them.

There's a good chance WA Labor will continue its fossil fuel fundamentalism, but its federal counterparts could be in for some more serious soul-searching, and the party's internal schism over gas might widen.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton summed it up fairly well in Kalgoorlie on Monday: "The problem for Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek is that they're trying to please people in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne who are potential Greens voters," he said – though it's worth adding there's at least one WA Labor MP who's also worried about how Labor's allegiance to gas might play in his electorate.

Whether to approve Browse is yet another decision Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will have to make that risks completely undermining any lingering perception that Labor is governing for climate and environment.

When asked on Friday about Browse, Albo backed 'environmental laws', though exactly which ones it wasn't clear.

"We of course need job security, we need energy reliability, and we need to make sure it’s done in a way that protects our environment,” the Prime Minister said.

“We have environmental laws in place that allow for proper environmental assessments. We support the resources sector, of course, subject to those environmental approvals.”

For a while now, it's seemed Woodside has been making contingencies for a situation where Browse doesn't go ahead. Earlier this year, multiple senior staff working on Browse were reportedly made redundant. In March, CEO Meg O'Neill said the regulatory process had been "slow going" and there was uncertainty over whether approvals would come through. Less than a month ago, Woodside bought US company Tellurian and its huge Driftwood gas project. “We do want to make sure we are advancing opportunities we have control over,” O'Neill said.

If Browse falls over, there'll be implications for another major component of Woodside's Burrup Hub, the 50-year extension of the North West Shelf project, which the EPA has recommended proceed and Woodside is waiting on final approvals for. Much of the capacity of the North West Shelf project, which will produce emissions that will put the Murujuga rock art at risk, was intended to come from Browse. Without Browse, Woodside will have to find that gas elsewhere. Some campaigners are worried there'll be greater incentive to open up the Kimberley to onshore gas fracking. Extending the North West Shelf commits WA to exploiting new gas sources for decades to come. It's unclear whether demand for that gas will even exist.

Most media coverage made the EPA's preliminary decision look like bad news for Woodside. In the Financial Review on Tuesday, it was front-page news. 'Woodside’s $30b Browse LNG project faces EPA knockback threat', went the paper's online headline. 'EPA deals ‘major blow’ to Woodside’s multibillion-dollar gas drilling plan at Browse basin', went The Guardian's.

But in The West Australian's Tuesday print edition, the news was relegated to the business section on page 29, under the headline '$30B gas project in blowback warning'. No comments from environmental groups were included, as they were in other coverage.

But early on Monday, a different story on the topic had briefly popped up on The West's website, only to be wiped from existence after being online for about fifteen minutes. I didn't see it myself, but I clicked in vain on a Google News link that led me nowhere. I'm told that the earlier story had included lines from environmentalists opposed to the Browse development. Later in the day, the more industry-friendly version that made it to the paper was published.

Browse looks like it's in trouble, but the gas cult remains powerful, and its devotees loyal.