House Votes To Overturn President Biden’s LNG Export Project Ban

As The Hill reported, last week the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that would take away the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) discretion to approve or reject natural gas export projects. Under the bill, that power would instead reside solely with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The legislation also would also require FERC to operate under the assumption that exporting natural gas is in the American public’s interest.

That provision is important because the legislation comes just a few weeks after President Joe Biden paused approvals for some new export projects so that the DOE could determine whether to change its criteria for evaluating these projects to include consideration of each project’s potential climate change impacts.

As the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) and the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA) wrote in a letter sent earlier this month to President Biden and every member of the U.S. House and Senate, the Biden administration’s pause on exports endangers U.S. allies and will:

• Result in tens of thousands of lost U.S. jobs;
• Discourage major investments by companies and their financial institutions by adding permitting risk;
• Endanger U.S. energy security; and
• Reverse progress toward addressing climate change.

While at a recent hearing both Democrats and Republicans expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s pause, the House legislation is unlikely to make it through the Democrat-controlled Senate and on to the White House.

Congress is not the only body that could overrule the policy, however. Indeed, it is likely that this pause will be challenged in federal court, so stay tuned to Connecting the Dots as this story develops.