Write a new simple attractive title based on the title from Japanese bank continues Texas LNG project despite community pleas and dont use quote marks

by Gaige Davila, Cronkite News
April 29, 2026

TOKYO — In November 2024, officials from the Japan-based bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) made their way to Brownsville, Texas, to see the structural beginnings of their latest billion-dollar investment.

Spanning nearly 1,000 acres, that investment is the Rio Grande LNG project, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant and pipeline that is under construction outside of Port Isabel, Texas, about 12 miles away from Brownsville. The facility is being built over wetlands along the Brownsville Ship Channel and is expected to be ready to operate by 2027.

Taking gas from the central part of the state, the facility will chill it into liquid form, load it onto ships and send it all over the world, where it’ll be used primarily for electric power. It will help MUFG, and Japan, become major players in the international gas market, in line with the country’s multi-year strategy to import more fossil fuels. MUFG, as one of the project’s lead financial advisors, has handled the over $18 billion that’s been invested in the facility’s development, alongside other Japanese banks. 

In the days before they saw Rio Grande LNG in person, on Nov. 5, 2024, the officials met with some of the project’s biggest local supporters in Brownsville. This included the highest elected officials in Brownsville and Cameron County; leadership of Rio Grande LNG’s parent company, NextDecade, and the construction company, Bechtel; and the various elected officials and community leaders that make up some of the project’s Community Advisory Board.

One of those meetings occurred in an upscale Italian restaurant with Brownsville Mayor John Cowen and then-City Manager Helen Ramirez; another was in a steakhouse, with Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino and Commissioner David Garza, according to calendar invitations acquired in a records request. It’s unclear what the officials and bank representatives spoke about. 

MUFG did not respond to questions about these meetings or to multiple requests for interviews. 

But the bank officials did not meet with local residents and community organizers who have been resisting the project’s buildout for more than a decade, despite some of the latter traveling to Tokyo to meet with MUFG just a month prior. During that meeting in Japan, organizers from Brownsville and the chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas told MUFG that the facility was an existential threat to the environment and people who lived near it. 

“I explained to them how we, as communities, do not want our area to become a polluted industry like the rest of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Dina Nuñez, a community organizer with Border Workers United who attended the meeting with MUFG in Tokyo. 

Rio Grande LNG would be the first oil and gas production facility in the Laguna Madre area. Unlike most of the Gulf Coast, this southernmost portion of the state doesn’t have petrochemical infrastructure like in Houston and Port Arthur or Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish.

Once the facility is complete, Rio Grande LNG is expected to produce 6.5 million tons of greenhouse gasses and thousands of pounds of air pollution a year, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A 2025 analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project using emissions data found that all seven LNG facilities operating in the U.S. have violated their air permit, including those in Texas. Five of the facilities had also violated the Clean Water Act, including Corpus Christi LNG, which is a few hours north of Port Isabel. 

Rio Grande LNG, and another possible LNG project next to it, are just two gas projects being developed in the U.S. Along with every operating facility expanding their facilities, Louisiana and Texas are set to get more LNG export facilities, totalling over 30 projects. That same analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project estimates that the annual greenhouse gasses from all of these facilities would be over 80 million tons, plus 100,000 pounds of pollutants. Despite the LNG industry’s claims of cleaner energy, that would be the greenhouse gas equivalent of burning 89 billion pounds of coal a year. 

Also in the Tokyo MUFG meeting was Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, and Juan Mancias, the chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. The group gave a presentation on the plant’s projected impacts on air quality; the fishing and tourism industries in the area; and the environmental impacts of the facility’s development over wetlands. 

But MUFG’s responses were, according to Hinojosa, “disrespectful.”

“They were trying to break apart the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe’s ties to the region,” Hinojosa said of the bank representatives’ response to their presentation.

After that meeting, Mancias was clear in how he felt the bank received his message. “I am trying to keep up with your etiquette, but I am pissed off with what they said in there to me,” he said to a crowd of Japanese supporters outside the MUFG headquarters in 2024. “I’m concerned that they are part of the genocide of my people right now and supporting it, because they are perpetuating the sacrifice zones, the killing, and the destruction of our lands.”

The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe’s ancestral lands include many portions of the wetlands that surround Port Isabel and Brownsville, including the Garcia Pasture, which is recognized as a World Monuments Fund site. These days, coastal communities of Texas’ Laguna Madre area, which runs from Port Mansfield to Port Isabel, are like many other villages-turned-cities in the state. They depend on fishing – both for food and work – and tourism, which is how most people who live there make their money.

The export plant project already has buyers from all over the world, including Japan. Thanks to funding from MUFG, Rio Grande LNG has also been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for expansion, even though it’s currently only in the first phase of construction. 

MUFG is a privately owned bank, but its investment into fossil fuel projects in the U.S. Gulf Coast aligns with the Japanese government’s strategy to expand its role in the international natural gas market. But in the midst of that expansion, environmental justice groups in Japan allege the banks are violating the human rights of people who live near the gas facilities they invest in or advise.

In September 2024, Rainforest Action Network Japan (RAN), the Japanese branch of the San Francisco-based environmental justice and human rights organization, filed a complaint against the bank with the Japan Center for Engagement and Remedy on Business and Human Rights (JaCER). That organization is a non-judicial body made up of NGOs that monitors mediation between banks and those who allege that they are violating human and labor rights. 

 RAN, which arranged the meeting between the Rio Grande Valley organizers and MUFG,  accused the Japanese bank of financing a project that violates the rights of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe.

RAN filed the complaint with JaCER. According to notes in the complaint made by JaCER, that “dialogue” with RAN was “underway” about its initial investigation, which was completed in November 2024. Yuki Sekimoto, RAN’s team manager, said that while they did have a phone call with a JaCER representative, the organization did not give any updates on the complaint filing beyond that it was being addressed.

“We asked JaCER to disclose the contents of the initial report,” Sekimoto said. “But JaCER said, due to the confidentiality, they cannot disclose [it].” Sekimoto says that MUFG has not spoken to RAN about the complaint or about their visit to the Rio Grande LNG facility. In a statement to Cronkite News, JaCER declined to comment on RAN’s grievance filing, citing confidentiality.

“There’s no action against human rights violations, especially Indigenous people’s rights,” Sekimoto said. “That’s very, very unacceptable, and an international issue for us.” 

MUFG has since invested $62.5 million directly into the Rio Grande LNG project, acting as the lead lender and financier of the facility’s next phase of construction.

MUFG has pulled out of fossil fuel projects after public pressure before, like when it backed out of the under-construction East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project from Uganda to Tanzania in 2023. However, MUFG has provided bonds for the French company TotalEnergies, which financed EACOP in 2025 and this year. African NGOs say this money is possibly being used for the pipeline project. 

Japan’s investment in fossil fuel projects internationally may reflect a larger strategy to avoid gas and oil shortages during energy shocks, such as the one coming from the United States’ and Israel’s war against Iran.

“Japan is so dependent on imported fuel,” said Ayumi Fukakusa, an executive director at Friends of the Earth Japan, overseeing fossil fuel and human rights advocacy. “So how the Japanese government, also the [fossil fuel] industry, is responding to these crises is not investing in homegrown renewable energies, but instead they are trying to diversify the source of imported fossil fuel.”

In 2020, the Japanese government set a goal to go carbon-neutral by 2050. But that goal applies only to carbon emissions in Japan, not to the country’s fossil fuel investments in other countries. 

Hinojosa holds out some hope to have  another opportunity to meet with MUFG in the future.

“[MUFG] doing a site visit is a good thing,” Hinojosa said. “It means that we know that they, at least some of their people, have seen it with their own eyes and could really allow us to have a deeper dialogue in the future, if we do have another meeting with them.”

Gaige Davila also reported from Port Isabel, Texas.

This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2026/04/29/japanese-banks-invest-texas-gas/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org”>Cronkite News</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/cronkitenews.azpbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/favicon1.png?resize=85%2C85&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=102424″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2026/04/29/japanese-banks-invest-texas-gas/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/cronkitenews.azpbs.org/p.js”></script>

Canonical Tag:



Copy Tag

Article Content:

While Japanese banks invest in US gas, a Texas community will pay the price</p> <p>Gaige Davila, Cronkite News<br /> April 29, 2026</p> <p>TOKYO — In November 2024, officials from the Japan-based bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) made their way to Brownsville, Texas, to see the structural beginnings of their latest billion-dollar investment.</p> <p>Spanning nearly 1,000 acres, that investment is the Rio Grande LNG project, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant and pipeline that is under construction outside of Port Isabel, Texas, about 12 miles away from Brownsville. The facility is being built over wetlands along the Brownsville Ship Channel and is expected to be ready to operate by 2027.</p> <p>Taking gas from the central part of the state, the facility will chill it into liquid form, load it onto ships and send it all over the world, where it’ll be used primarily for electric power. It will help MUFG, and Japan, become major players in the international gas market, in line with the country’s multi-year strategy to import more fossil fuels. MUFG, as one of the project’s lead financial advisors, has handled the over $18 billion that’s been invested in the facility’s development, alongside other Japanese banks. </p> <p>In the days before they saw Rio Grande LNG in person, on Nov. 5, 2024, the officials met with some of the project’s biggest local supporters in Brownsville. This included the highest elected officials in Brownsville and Cameron County; leadership of Rio Grande LNG’s parent company, NextDecade, and the construction company, Bechtel; and the various elected officials and community leaders that make up some of the project’s Community Advisory Board.</p> <p>One of those meetings occurred in an upscale Italian restaurant with Brownsville Mayor John Cowen and then-City Manager Helen Ramirez; another was in a steakhouse, with Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino and Commissioner David Garza, according to calendar invitations acquired in a records request. It’s unclear what the officials and bank representatives spoke about. </p> <p>MUFG did not respond to questions about these meetings or to multiple requests for interviews. </p> <p>But the bank officials did not meet with local residents and community organizers who have been resisting the project’s buildout for more than a decade, despite some of the latter traveling to Tokyo to meet with MUFG just a month prior. During that meeting in Japan, organizers from Brownsville and the chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas told MUFG that the facility was an existential threat to the environment and people who lived near it. </p> <p>“I explained to them how we, as communities, do not want our area to become a polluted industry like the rest of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Dina Nuñez, a community organizer with Border Workers United who attended the meeting with MUFG in Tokyo. </p> <p>Rio Grande LNG would be the first oil and gas production facility in the Laguna Madre area. Unlike most of the Gulf Coast, this southernmost portion of the state doesn’t have petrochemical infrastructure like in Houston and Port Arthur or Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish.</p> <p>Once the facility is complete, Rio Grande LNG is expected to produce 6.5 million tons of greenhouse gasses and thousands of pounds of air pollution a year, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A 2025 analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project using emissions data found that all seven LNG facilities operating in the U.S. have violated their air permit, including those in Texas. Five of the facilities had also violated the Clean Water Act, including Corpus Christi LNG, which is a few hours north of Port Isabel. </p> <p>Rio Grande LNG, and another possible LNG project next to it, are just two gas projects being developed in the U.S. Along with every operating facility expanding their facilities, Louisiana and Texas are set to get more LNG export facilities, totalling over 30 projects. That same analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project estimates that the annual greenhouse gasses from all of these facilities would be over 80 million tons, plus 100,000 pounds of pollutants. Despite the LNG industry’s claims of cleaner energy, that would be the greenhouse gas equivalent of burning 89 billion pounds of coal a year. </p> <p>Also in the Tokyo MUFG meeting was Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, and Juan Mancias, the chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. The group gave a presentation on the plant’s projected impacts on air quality; the fishing and tourism industries in the area; and the environmental impacts of the facility’s development over wetlands. </p> <p>But MUFG’s responses were, according to Hinojosa, “disrespectful.”</p> <p>“They were trying to break apart the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe’s ties to the region,” Hinojosa said of the bank representatives’ response to their presentation.</p> <p>After that meeting, Mancias was clear in how he felt the bank received his message. “I am trying to keep up with your etiquette, but I am pissed off with what they said in there to me,” he said to a crowd of Japanese supporters outside the MUFG headquarters in 2024. “I’m concerned that they are part of the genocide of my people right now and supporting it, because they are perpetuating the sacrifice zones, the killing, and the destruction of our lands.”</p> <p>The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe’s ancestral lands include many portions of the wetlands that surround Port Isabel and Brownsville, including the Garcia Pasture, which is recognized as a World Monuments Fund site. These days, coastal communities of Texas’ Laguna Madre area, which runs from Port Mansfield to Port Isabel, are like many other villages-turned-cities in the state. They depend on fishing – both for food and work – and tourism, which is how most people who live there make their money.</p> <p>The export plant project already has buyers from all over the world, including Japan. Thanks to funding from MUFG, Rio Grande LNG has also been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for expansion, even though it’s currently only in the first phase of construction. </p> <p>MUFG is a privately owned bank, but its investment into fossil fuel projects in the U.S. Gulf Coast aligns with the Japanese government’s strategy to expand its role in the international natural gas market. But in the midst of that expansion, environmental justice groups in Japan allege the banks are violating the human rights of people who live near the gas facilities they invest in or advise.</p> <p>In September 2024, Rainforest Action Network Japan (RAN), the Japanese branch of the San Francisco-based environmental justice and human rights organization, filed a complaint against the bank with the Japan Center for Engagement and Remedy on Business and Human Rights (JaCER). That organization is a non-judicial body made up of NGOs that monitors mediation between banks and those who allege that they are violating human and labor rights. </p> <p> RAN, which arranged the meeting between the Rio Grande Valley organizers and MUFG,  accused the Japanese bank of financing a project that violates the rights of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe.</p> <p>RAN filed the complaint with JaCER. According to notes in the complaint made by JaCER, that “dialogue” with RAN was “underway” about its initial investigation, which was completed in November 2024. Yuki Sekimoto, RAN’s team manager, said that while they did have a phone call with a JaCER representative, the organization did not give any updates on the complaint filing beyond that it was being addressed.</p> <p>“We asked JaCER to disclose the contents of the initial report,” Sekimoto said. “But JaCER said, due to the confidentiality, they cannot disclose [it].” Sekimoto says that MUFG has not spoken to RAN about the complaint or about their visit to the Rio Grande LNG facility. In a statement to Cronkite News, JaCER declined to comment on RAN’s grievance filing, citing confidentiality.</p> <p>“There’s no action against human rights violations, especially Indigenous people’s rights,” Sekimoto said. “That’s very, very unacceptable, and an international issue for us.” </p> <p>MUFG has since invested $62.5 million directly into the Rio Grande LNG project, acting as the lead lender and financier of the facility’s next phase of construction.</p> <p>MUFG has pulled out of fossil fuel projects after public pressure before, like when it backed out of the under-construction East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project from Uganda to Tanzania in 2023. However, MUFG has provided bonds for the French company TotalEnergies, which financed EACOP in 2025 and this year. African NGOs say this money is possibly being used for the pipeline project. </p> <p>Japan’s investment in fossil fuel projects internationally may reflect a larger strategy to avoid gas and oil shortages during energy shocks, such as the one coming from the United States’ and Israel’s war against Iran.</p> <p>“Japan is so dependent on imported fuel,” said Ayumi Fukakusa, an executive director at Friends of the Earth Japan, overseeing fossil fuel and human rights advocacy. “So how the Japanese government, also the [fossil fuel] industry, is responding to these crises is not investing in homegrown renewable energies, but instead they are trying to diversify the source of imported fossil fuel.”</p> <p>In 2020, the Japanese government set a goal to go carbon-neutral by 2050. But that goal applies only to carbon emissions in Japan, not to the country’s fossil fuel investments in other countries. </p> <p>Hinojosa holds out some hope to have  another opportunity to meet with MUFG in the future.</p> <p>“[MUFG] doing a site visit is a good thing,” Hinojosa said. “It means that we know that they, at least some of their people, have seen it with their own eyes and could really allow us to have a deeper dialogue in the future, if we do have another meeting with them.”</p> <p>Gaige Davila also reported from Port Isabel, Texas.</p> <p>This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Copy Content

Tracking snippet:



Copy Snippet