Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Biden shows little concern about what is good for the country as his detrimental policies are designed to appeal to his radical base rather than what is in our country's interest.

Joe Biden's War on LNG: What’s Really at Stake
By Patrice Douglas
February 13, 2024

Recently, the Biden administration announced its decision to indefinitely stall permit approvals for U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export facilities. This rash decision will jeopardize our international relationships, harm the prosperity of American workers, and drives prices up for consumers. In a last-ditch effort to appease his environmentalist base before this year’s pivotal election, President Biden issued delays on at least 17 LNG export facilities.

Motivated by winning over young, miseducated TikTok activists, Biden’s decision to ban LNG export permits has caused waves of concerns throughout the international community, our nation’s energy industry, and the Gulf Coast. And, while a vocal subset of his party may oppose new LNG infrastructure, long-term international implications and harm to Americans will overshadow any short-term political gains that Biden’s team is expecting.

This announcement came as little surprise following the administration’s assembly of an LNG taskforce that was established to examine the impact LNG exports has on the environment. However, ripples of this decision will be seen throughout our nation, particularly in the states who depend on the economic benefits of these projects the most, like Texas and Louisiana. By implementing this “delay to die” policy, hardworking Americans are punished by hamstringing new job opportunities, losing out on tax revenue that funds their local schools, healthcare and law enforcement services. Gulf states’ economies, in particular, are acutely impacted by the energy industry.

Namely, Louisiana’s oil and gas industry contributes 73 billion to the state’s GDP annually and supports almost 250,000 jobs. These benefits were only expected to increase with major investments from new LNG export facilities, in Lake Charles and Port Arthur, which are expected to produce thousands of jobs. These benefits are all now put on hold indefinitely due to President Biden’s decision.

Alongside harm to American workers, the ability to support our allies during supply shortages overseas and prior commitments are now in jeopardy following this decision. When Russia invaded Ukraine, many countries were left scrambling to replace their energy supply. With the U.S.’s passion and innovation, we were able to fill their supply gaps and provide a helping hand to our allies. Now that the Biden administration has showed we are reneging on our commitments to Europe and Asia, our allies will need to turn to countries like Russia and Qatar.

Many of these projects already have long-term supply commitments like Securing Energy for Europe (SEFE), a German state-owned company that established a 20-year contract with Venture Global to receive LNG from CP2. Even recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, BusinessEurope and Keidanren wrote to President Biden and other administration officials to express their concerns following this decision as it jeopardizes global energy security and sets back international climate targets.

The irony of this decision is that it runs counter to President Biden’s climate goals. Natural gas has been instrumental in helping curtail the U.S. carbon emissions. In fact, by facilitating our nation’s phaseout of coal for electricity generation, natural gas has reduced our carbon emissions by more than 30%. Additionally, switching over to natural gas did more than twice as much to cut carbon emissions as renewables did in recent years. Not to mention, America became the world’s leading exporter of LNG, proving that we have the domestic capacity to produce energy that can keep the lights on across the globe. America’s transition to a lower carbon footprint is very much dependent on the increased use and exportation of LNG.

On that point, by stopping new LNG export permits, the Biden administration is robbing emerging and developing nations of the opportunity to replace their usage of high-emitting substances like coal, wood and biomass with cleaner natural gas – the very switch that has helped America reduce our emissions. LNG serves as a more accessible climate solution as significant infrastructure and investment are still needed to make renewables a viable way to lower emissions on a large scale. What these environmentalists don’t realize is that they are doing the world an injustice in terms of climate as LNG is an immediate climate solution compared to renewables which would take years to deploy at the scale needed to fulfill our nation’s energy demand.

This decision to delay new LNG export permits is a disservice to the American people, our allies globally. And, it may even backfire on President Biden’s own reelection goals as polls have shown that 55% of Americans agree that exporting LNG should continue to be a priority in 2024. Biden needs to stop trying – and failing -- to win political points before the election and focus on what’s genuinely at stake: the future of our country.