Key Questions to Consider As the House Dives Deeper Into the LNG Pause

Wednesday’s House Oversight and Accountability hearing will take a closer look at the motivations behind the Biden administration’s LNG pause and will likely see Department of Energy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Brad Crabtree face pointed questioning about the status of DOE’s study of the climate, economic, and other impacts of LNG.  

DOE’s study is due out any day now – its origins have been questioned, experts across the board have testified against the misguided policy, and long-time environmental activists have admitted to influencing the controversial decision.   

Here are some key questions to consider regarding the hearing and the wider issues of the DOE’s study and the Biden administration’s LNG pause.  

Where is the DOE’s LNG export study? 

DOE has yet to release its study to the public, despite beginning it in January, prompting Hill Republicans to escalate pressure on the merits of the study. In September, Reps. August Pfluger (R-TX) and Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, stating that the contentious study was heavily influenced by Dr. Robert Howarth’s controversial study – research that has been criticized and debunked repeatedly in the last decade.  

Howarth himself has openly admitted to releasing the study prematurely in order to politically influence Biden’s policy goals. His study includes allegations that LNG is “worse than coal” when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, but the merits of Howarth’s research have been questioned by energy experts across the board, including by the think tank Breakthrough Institute, who explained in a recent report the methodology was fundamentally flawed.  

As Representative Pfluger explained: 

“The Biden-Harris Administration has used every tool in their arsenal to attack American energy production, including relying on a flawed study to shut down LNG exports—endangering energy security for the U.S. and our allies.”  

The DOE has promised the study will be published by the end of 2024, but has given no indication of when in December that will happen.  

Did the DOE already conduct an LNG export study and withhold it from the public?   

Public records obtained by Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO), reveal that the DOE may have already conducted a review of LNG export impacts. As the Daily Caller reports: 

“If GAO is correct, the Biden-Harris administration essentially deceived the public in an election year to institute a policy that undermines American geopolitical interests, chills investment in domestic energy projects and greatly pleases the well-funded environmentalist lobby which is spending big to help Democrats in this election cycle.”  

If there was a study previously conducted, it was not released to the public, despite its relevance to the Biden-Harris administration’s restrictive energy policies and LNG pause.  

Did DOE coordinate with wealthy philanthropies pushing the LNG export pause?  

Questions of the origin of such a controversial policy must also be considered. A bombshell piece by the Wall Street Journal, published in February just a month after the pause went into place, explores the powerful, controversial influences that led to the Biden-Harris administration’s widely unpopular decision to pause LNG export permitting. WSJ reports:  

“The billionaire-backed campaign, starting around four years ago, worked to identify and fund community leaders already campaigning against fossil-fuel projects. The activists buttonholed White House and federal officials in Washington, Houston and Dubai as part of a high-intensity grassroots campaign. ‘They got our attention,’ a senior Biden administration official said of the activists’ efforts, describing the campaign as intense.” 

Dark money groups controlled by members of the Rockefeller family, as well as other billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg, have provided millions of dollars to environmental groups that actively campaign against fossil-fuel projects. It is no surprise these projects include proposed LNG terminals currently on hold due to the LNG pause.  

 While prioritizing pleasing environmentalist groups and wealthy philanthropies, the Biden administration subsequently disregarded U.S. energy independence, as well as undermined U.S. geopolitical interests.  

As Senior Climate Advisor to the White House John Podesta expressed:  

 “The US is now the number one producer of oil and gas in the world, the number one exporter of natural gas, and that’s a good thing, because following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the need that Europe had to rely on different sources rather than Russia fossils, it was important that the US could step up and supply a good deal of the need.” 

Bottom line: Today’s House Oversight and Accountability hearing on LNG will explore whether the Biden administration prioritized party politics over U.S. energy security with their LNG export permitting pause that has threatened U.S. energy dominance, allied’ energy security, and economic prosperity.  

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