When former President Joe Biden stopped, the approval of the Ministry of Energy stopped on new natural gas export projects last January – a step he received positively by environmental defenders and mocked fossil fuel companies – the liquefied natural gas industry was in the midst of a period of unlocked expansion. The sprawling export stations appeared, one by one, along the Gulf coast in South Texas and Louisiana, with many different stages of planning. Biden said that the consequences of building on the climate and consumers were unconfirmed, echoing the fears of the defenders, and the Ministry of Energy was responsible for their entire understanding before cleaning the new developments.
“During this period, we will take a closer look at the effects of liquefied natural gas exports on energy costs and energy security in America, and our environment,” said the former president in the effects of liquefied natural gas exports on the costs of energy and energy security in America and our environment. statement. Despite the celebration of Biden to stop developing new liquefied natural gas by climate and environment defenders, it was applied only to the Ministry of Energy, and not the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, or FERC, the other agency on approval of gas developments.
In the middle of the temporary suspension period, while the Ministry of Energy was evaluating the new liquefied natural gas developments, FERC agreed to build a new factory by Gaint Venture Global.
Six months later, in December 2024, when government offices began emptying for winter holidays, the Ministry of Energy quietly published the results of its research. Via 58 pages, Report He briefly stressed what many climate advocates and environmental justice were afraid: exporting huge amounts of natural gas abroad, increasing the prices of local fuel and electricity. Not only that, but export stations are huge greenhouse gases, which undermines the alleged fossil fuel industry that liquefied natural gas is a clean alternative to charcoal, and the export of crossbreeding stations on virgin wetlands have a devastating effect on multi -generational fishing communities in the successor.
“Today’s post promotes that the usual approach to work is neither sustainable nor advisory,” the agency He wrote in a press statement Announcement of the report.
The following month, President Donald Trump began his second term, and instead of sending mixed messages under Biden’s management, the federal government’s position on LNG exports became a uniform supportive. On his first full day in his post, Trump ended Biden’s stop in new export projects. Then, in the middle of February, I released Ferc Venture Global Global Lightlight.
There Supplementary environmental impact assessmentFERC decided that the Venture Global’s CP2 LNG project “There is no major emissions” for the surrounding area – a blatant contradiction in the previous report of the Ministry of Energy. A week later, under the new driving of the former hydraulic Cracking train, Chris Wright, the Ministry of Energy Suggested export station for Communification Lng. In its decision, the agency did not refer to its December report. It calls for omission to question the health Trump’s first “America” agendaTyson Scum, director of the Public Citizen Energy Program, a non -profit organization for consumers, said.
He said: “All Trump’s work is designed, especially on energy, to raise the prices of Americans and increase profits for the fossil fuel industry.” “When the industry is responsible for politics, politics will reflect the priorities of the industry.”
Each of the liquefied natural gas export stations that obtained approvals this month for Cameron’s diocese in the southwest of Louisiana, the wetland area that was just a few decades ago is home to one of the largest seafood producers in the country. Although the seasons of the successive hurricane and industrial development have paralyzed this industry, the fishermen and craftsmen continue to work on the parish, many of them joined A lawsuit against FERC To agree to the Venture Global CP2 factory. After filing the lawsuit, the committee set aside its license to make it “more permanently permanently”, and Megan Gibson, a lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Center that works on liquefied natural gas. The additional EIS that was released earlier this month is supposed to provide the durability and restore the project in the movement.
“This eis reads like [FERC] Gibson told Grist:
The Venture Global CP2 facility will be one of the largest liquefied gas export stations in the world. The plans consist of a financing factory of 18 blocks, pre -treatment plants, huge storage tanks above the ground, 84 mile tubes font linking the facility to natural gas diseases in JASPER and Newton County, Texas. The company is already running a LNG station in the Cameron diocese in Louisiana, and it is about to build a separate one in the Playlinis diocese in the southeast of the state. In 2023, Grist Visited John Aller, whose land is transcended, and witnessed a hundred feet torches emitting from the chimneys of Venture Global- Evidence of operational problems Defenders say that the company has not yet been resolved. Before Venture Global is able to slow down on CP2, FERC will have to issue a final draft of the supplementary EIS, and DOE will have to issue its own approval.
Like other experts that Grist spoke to, Gibson said that FERC’s actions did not surprise her because the committee has a good reputation in new gas projects in the news in the departments of democracy and the republic. She added that this was more historical than the industry examination. Under the National Gas Law, both FERC and DOE must determine whether the development of the new liquefied natural gas in the public interest before approval. This evidence was the easiest way for preachers to combat the agency’s decisions in court.
Gibson said: “Converting this ideal coastal community into this industrial axis … does not seem to be in the public interest.” Venture Global did not respond to the comment.
The report of the Ministry of Energy in December 2024, which determines the risks of the public from the exports of the incapable liquefied, is currently open General comment. The Trump administration extended the suspension period until late March. Slocum, director of the Public Citizen Energy Program, believes that this decision may be more tactical than the real openness to public inputs – giving fossil fuel companies more time to operate studies that undermine the previous results reached by the Ministry of Energy. In an email, Grrist asked the Ministry of Energy about the reason for extending the suspension period, but they did not hear.
“The industry will mainly try to buy an analysis of the pro -public’s interests through some very expensive luxury studies on which the Ministry of Energy will rely heavily.” The function of his preachers and other defenders of holes in those studies were. “We do not have money, but I think we have the facts next to us.”
In addition to the effects of consumers, local population, and climate, experts indicated that building new liquefied natural gas stations in a saturated market is already meaningless economically. A Modern report By the Energy Economy and Financial Analysis Institute found that Europe, the largest gas export market in the United States, saw a 19 % decrease in liquefied natural gas imports last year, with the demand for gas at its lowest level in 11 years. Anna Maria Galler McCakroch, the lead energy analyst at IEFA in Europe, said the trend reflects new renewable projects coming online as well as countries that use gas from their own reserves. While you expect the demand to increase next year, in particular due to the cold winter season in the early winter and the need to renew the reserves, Jaller-Makarewicz said it does not expect to rise again to the levels that were seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Trump administration appears without tightening these numbers. Earlier this month, Trump She announced a joint project With Japan’s presence of a $ 44 billion proposed project for LNG in Alaska, a step that can make East Asia-which has the second highest liquefied natural gas request-depends more on American gas.
“There must be a need for the project, and what we see with this project is that it is mainly taken from the local gases of the American class and its shipment abroad,” said Caroline Riser, a lawyer for the Council for the Defense of Natural Resources that work on the issue against FERC to agree to CP2.
According to Riser, whether or not Trump finds a market for gas plants coming online, it is still possible to leave the American public carrying the bag.
