SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick (AP) – A day after residents in the small Maine town of Perry turned down plans for a liquefied natural gas terminal, the city of Saint John voted to stand by its earlier approval of tax breaks for an LNG terminal in New Brunswick.

Saint John City Council voted Tuesday not to rescind a 25-year tax concession for an Irving Oil-Repsol liquefied natural gas plant. Property taxes for the terminal will be capped at a $500,000 (Canadian) a year for 25 years.

In Maine, Quoddy Bay LLC offered the town of Perry $1 million a year if residents approved the plant. But on Monday, voters in the Down East town rejected the plan by a 279-214 vote, making it the latest coastal community in the state to say no to an LNG terminal.

Quoddy Bay LLC, an energy development partnership in Tulsa, Okla., wanted to build the terminal on a 42-acre site on Indian land along Passamaquoddy Bay.

The project has been competing with two projects in the Canadian Maritimes: Irving Oil-Repsol in New Brunswick and Access Northeast Energy Inc. in Nova Scotia, as well as at least four other projects proposed across New England.

A Maritimes & Northeast natural gas pipeline that serves New England can support one or possibly two LNG terminals in the region.

In Saint John on Tuesday, the council voted 7-4 to keep the tax breaks intact as a crowd of about 250 people who packed council chambers and spilled out into the lobby watched. Most of those in the crowd booed when council voted.

Mayor Norm McFarlane, who had presented the tax deal to council two weeks ago, asked several times for quiet and threatened to clear the council chambers if people didn’t settle down.


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