NATO Official Suggests Energy Export Pause Will Harm Allies
In remarks in Canada, Juljius Grubliauskas, an official with the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) from Lithuania, argued that U.S. and Canadian energy exports are an important part of maintaining peace and security around the world and are necessary to meet the challenge of recent aggression from Russia.
“We need to be sure that we’re going to have security of supply of production in the U.S. and in Canada,” Grubliauskas said. “We have last one import supplier, the Russians, [and] we are in the transition to perhaps also lose another big supplier, the Middle East Gulf countries, as maritime routes become more and more insecure.”
The remarks came just weeks after the Biden administration paused some U.S. energy exports.
As Connecting the Dots has reported several times, the stated purpose of that pause is to determine whether liquified natural gas (LNG) exports harm the environment, and whether export applications sent to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) should be considered through that lens of their impact on the climate. Until now, applications to DOE for export licenses have been processed relatively expeditiously and granted after finding those exports would be in the U.S. public interest. Altering this process could make it much harder to bring vital energy infrastructure projects on line.
The Biden’s administration freeze immediately applied to 12 export terminals along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast with applications pending at the DOE.
As a reminder, the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) has made the case to U.S. officials that this pause will harm the United States’ own energy security, and could put its allies in more vulnerable positions. With the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), MSCI sent a letter, available here, to the Biden administration and every member of the U.S. House and Senate stating why the metals industry opposes the pause.
Thankfully, Congress has held hearings on the Biden administration’s policy and the U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation to reverse it. The U.S. Senate still has not considered that bill, however. MSCI asks that its company leaders and employees forward the EEIA letter to their senators so they hear directly from constituents about the pause’s potential to harm the U.S. economy, American workers, and global peace and security.
MSCI also recently joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in sending a letter to federal lawmakers asking them to support this bill. Read that letter here and please forward it to your senators as well.