The Patriot Post® · Biden Halts LNG Exports to Spite Texas
Amid his standoff with Texas Governor Greg Abbott over access to Texas’s border, Joe Biden’s administration on Friday announced a sudden and seemingly unrelated policy decision.
That decision was to halt the permitting process for liquified natural gas for export. And the supposed rationale? To fight the Left’s favorite bogeyman — climate change. “The White House and Department of Energy (DOE) said the pause would occur while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects’ carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete,” read the joint statement.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm contended that this sudden action was needed to “review export applications using the most comprehensive up-to-date analysis of the economic, environmental, and national security considerations.” She added, “The U.S. is committed to affordable energy and economic opportunities for all Americans … and we’re committed to protecting Americans against climate change as we lead the world into a clean energy future.”
How exactly halting the export of LNG would make energy more affordable and protect the American people against climate change is unclear. Indeed, it is thanks to the increasing use of natural gas that the U.S. has seen its carbon emissions significantly decrease over the last two decades.
However, the Biden administration’s anti-fossil fuel agenda ultimately views all fossil fuel as bad. As White House climate czar Ali Zaidi explained: “When it comes to the climate crisis, we square our shoulders, we take on the challenge in front of us, we lean into the solutions and, yes, we transition globally away from fossil fuels. That is the solution, that is the strategy that the president has articulated.”
Zaidi also sought to deflect whether this decision had anything to do with Texas, instead saying it had everything to do with the recent UN climate change conference and Joe Biden’s global leadership in transitioning “away from fossil fuels.”
That’s a convenient excuse, but don’t buy it. The fact is that Texas is the largest exporter of LNG in the U.S. and the third-largest exporter globally. This move is designed to hurt Texas economically. It’s as Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham sees it: a direct response to Texas taking “a bold stand in defending our border against foreign invaders,” as it looks “more like retaliation than a sound policy decision.”
Halting the export of LNG could cost an estimated 70,000 jobs.
Furthermore, this decision comes in the middle of winter, which is the peak natural gas season. The Federalist CEO Sean Davis contends: “They don’t want you heating your home with wood, or coal, or oil, or propane, or natural gas. Which means they don’t want you heating your home at all. These little demons want you freezing to death because their actual goal is fewer humans.”
Biden has effectively politicized the DOE, using it as a regulatory bludgeon against political opponents and in favor of his green pipe dream. In doing so, Biden has handed Donald Trump yet another political issue on which to campaign. As former assistant secretary for fossil energy at the DOE Steven Winberg observes, “It could be overturned with the stroke of a pen.”
Meanwhile, in Russia, Vladimir Putin must be applauding Biden, since the halting of U.S. LNG exports benefits the Russian economy.