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Boosting LNG exports would harm people and the planet, DOE report concludes
The US Department of Energy (DOE) this week released a report that concludes a rise in exports from the booming natural gas industry would lead to greater global fossil fuel emissions, expose already-vulnerable communities to more pollution and raise gas prices for consumers.
The publication “reinforces that a business as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in a statement.
“Unfettered” liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would increase the price of wholesale natural gas in the US by over 30%, said Granholm, impacting households, farmers and industry. The study also concluded that current US LNG exports are “already more than enough to meet global demand,” she said, and that while LNG has been suggested as an alternative to coal for some countries, the study “shows a world in which additional US LNG exports displace more renewables than coal globally.”
The report, published Dec. 17, comes after the Biden administration last January announced a pause on pending applications for facilities that export liquified natural gas (LNG) while the DOE reviewed the approval process, citing climate change considerations. In September, more than 125 scientists signed a letter addressed to Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, warning that the increase in natural gas production threatens to worsen climate change and jeopardize public health and the environment.
“Our hope is that we can now assess the future of natural gas exports based on the facts and ensure authorizations are reviewed in a manner that truly advances the public interest of all the American people,” said Granholm. “Special scrutiny needs to be applied toward very large LNG projects,” she added, noting that a project that exports 4 billion cubic feet of LNG per day would singlehandedly emit more climate-warming greenhouse gases than almost three-quarters of the world’s countries each did in 2023.
There will be a 60-day public comment period for the report, said the DOE, which will extend into the start of the Trump administration. Donald Trump is reportedly set to roll out an energy package early in his term that will include approving export permits for new LNG projects, a move applauded by industry groups.
“The Department of Energy’s US LNG export ‘pause’ harmed the industry and called into question the role of the United States as a global energy superpower,” Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the incoming Trump administration to create lasting regulatory certainty for US LNG exports.”
US natural gas production has skyrocketed in the last decade, with the nation becoming the world’s largest LNG exporter in 2023. LNG is produced through fracking and is made mostly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Most operational and planned LNG terminals are located along the Gulf Coast, where environmental groups and local residents have raised concerns about the facilities’ impacts on public health and the environment, saying they threaten to wipe out generations-old fishing communities in Louisiana.
“This study confirms that Donald Trump’s plans to supercharge LNG exports will come at the expense of consumers and the climate,” Raena Garcia, Senior Energy Campaigner at the environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. “We cannot afford to prop up an industry that continues to threaten our people and the planet for profit. Over the next few weeks, it is not too late for the Biden Administration to curb the deadly LNG export boom.”
