Photo caption: Gas facility
The U.S. Department of Energy will restart issuing new permits for exports of liquefied natural gas, reversing one of the most controversial decisions of the Biden administration that froze the process while it investigated the impact of LNG production and exports on the climate.
This week, the DoE said it had finalized its conclusions about the Bide admin’s pause on LNG approvals and the environmental impact study that followed that pause, complete with the public comments that were collected after the study’s release at the end of last year.
The conclusions were that the United States had enough natural gas resources to significantly increase its exports of the commodity without making gas for domestic consumers too expensive, the Department of Energy said. It added that “growing LNG exports increases our gross domestic product and expands jobs while improving our trade balance; and increasing U.S. LNG exports enhances domestic and international global security with no discernable impact to global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Commenting on the news, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that “The facts are clear: expanding America’s LNG exports is good for Americans and good for the world. Today, the Department of Energy is following the facts, closing the door on the Biden administration’s failed policies, and putting America’s energy future on stronger footing.”
President Biden signed what the White House called a pause on new LNG export capacity permits in late January 2024, under pressure from climate activists. Those claimed that LNG was even worse for the environment than coal and any new export capacity would aggravate what they see as an already grave situation with the earth’s climate.
Currently, the United States is the largest exporter of LNG in the world and has the ambition to become even larger, with energy companies planning what amounts to a threefold increase in export capacity for liquefied gas.
=== Oilprice.com ===
