The Biden administration is delaying consideration of new natural gas export terminals in the United States, even as gas deliveries to Europe and Asia have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The President’s Election Year Decision

Joe

Biden joins environmentalists who fear that massive increases in exports, in the form of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, will stem potentially catastrophic global warming emissions, while the Democratic president has pledged to cut climate pollution by 2030. to be reduced by half.

While MAGA Republicans will completely deny the urgency of the climate crisis and condemn the American people to a dangerous future, my administration will not be complacent,” Biden said in a statement Friday. We will not pander to special interests. We will hear the calls from young people and communities on the frontlines who are using their voices to demand action from those with the power to act.”

Current economic and environmental analyzes the Energy Department uses to evaluate LNG projects do not sufficiently consider potential cost increases for U.S. consumers and manufacturers or the impact of greenhouse gas emissions, the White House said.

Industry groups condemned the pause as a victory for Russia,” while environmentalists cheered a move they have long sought as a way to counter Biden’s approval of the massive Willow oil project in Alaska last year.

This decision is courageous because Donald Trump (the man who pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords on the grounds that climate change is a hoax) will attack it mercilessly,” wrote environmentalist Bill McKibben in an online post.

But it is also very smart: Biden wants young people who mainly care about the climate in his corner. “They were angry about his stupid approval of the Willow oil project,” McKibben added.

A proposed LNG export terminal in Louisiana would produce about 20 times the greenhouse gas emissions of Willow, McKibben noted.

And of course everyone understands that if Biden is not re-elected, this victory means nothing. It will disappear on day 1 when [Trump] begins its relentless campaign to drill,” he said.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the pause will not affect already approved export projects and noted that U.S. gas exports reached record highs last year. The pause will not immediately affect U.S. supplies to Europe or Asia, Granholm said, as there are currently seven LNG terminals in operation, and several more are expected to come online in the coming years.

“We remain committed to ensuring that our partners’ energy needs are met over the medium term,” she told reporters at a White House briefing late Thursday. If necessary, the Energy Department can grant exceptions for national security needs, Granholm said.

She and other officials declined to say how long the licensing pause will last, but said a study into how proposed LNG projects will affect the environment, economy and national security would take “several months.” any decisions on ongoing LNG projects until after 2024

presidential

election.

U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas began less than a decade ago, but have grown rapidly in recent years to the point that the U.S. has become the largest gas exporter in the world. Exports rose sharply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Biden and Granholm have celebrated the supply of American gas to Europe and Asia as a key geopolitical weapon against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, turned those comments against the Democratic administration and condemned Biden’s action.

This is a win for Russia and a loss for America’s allies, American jobs and global climate progress,” said Mike Sommers, president and CEO of API.

“No research is needed to understand the clear benefits of American LNG [exports] to stabilize global energy markets, support thousands of American jobs and reduce emissions around the world by transitioning countries to cleaner fuels and away from coal, Sommers said in a statement.

Biden’s action “is nothing more than a broken promise to America’s allies, and it is time for the administration to stop playing politics with global energy security,” he said.

Granholm, who has made a point of working with oil and gas executives even as Biden has sometimes exchanged pointed barbs with them, said a lot has happened since LNG exports began about eight years ago.

“We need to gain an even better understanding of the needs of the (global energy) market, the supply and demand of long-term energy sources and environmental factors,” she said. So by updating the analysis process now, we will be better informed to avoid export licenses that reduce our domestic energy availability, weaken our security or undermine our economy.

Granholm emphasizes that the delay is not a retroactive review of already permitted exports, nor is it intended to punish the oil and gas industry.

“We are committed to strengthening energy security here in the U.S. and with our allies, and we are committed to protecting Americans from climate change as we lead the world toward a clean energy future,” she said.

Jeremy Symons, an environmental consultant and former climate policy adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency, called Biden’s decision a game-changer in the fight against climate change.

“The president is drawing a line in the sand by putting the country’s interests first and listening to climate science,” Symons said.

in an interview.

Gone are the days when massive fossil fuel projects like the CP2 project escaped federal government control. We now have a president who cares about climate change.”

Symons and other activists have taken aim at the $10 billion Calcasieu Pass 2 project, or CP2, along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, noting that it would be the nation’s largest export terminal if built. The Cameron Parish project would export up to 20 million tons

(18.1 million tons)

of refrigerated natural gas per year, emitting more greenhouse gases than even the Willow project, which environmentalists have described as a “carbon bomb.”

Symons called the gas project “bad for our nation, bad for our health and bad for our economy.”

Shaylyn Hynes, spokesperson for the project owner, Virginia-based Venture Global, said the Biden administration “continues to create uncertainty about whether our allies can rely on American LNG for their energy security.”

A prolonged pause in LNG exports “would shock the global energy market… and send a devastating signal to our allies that they can no longer rely on the United States,” said Hynes, who served as the Energy Department representative in the Trump administration . .

“The real irony is that these policies would harm the climate and lead to more climate change [greenhouse gas] emissions because it would force the world to switch to coal instead of natural gas, Hynes said.

Climate activists dispute this, calling LNG a major contributor to climate change due to methane leaks and an energy-intensive process to liquefy gas.

Daly writes for the Associated Press.