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Louis Jacobson
By Louis Jacobson January 23, 2025

Trump lifts Biden-era pause on future liquefied natural gas exports

On the second day of his new presidency, President Donald Trump ended a Biden administration pause on liquefied natural gas export projects that had not already been operating or approved.

As a 2024 presidential candidate, Trump said he "will approve the export terminals on my very first day back." Trump and industry groups have argued that the U.S. should capitalize on its energy assets, especially to offer European nations energy options from suppliers other than Russia.

In January 2024, the Biden administration paused approving new projects to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to countries with which U.S. lacks a free-trade agreement. 

Opponents said the pause harmed U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. Some environmentalists applauded the pause, however, as a way to curb climate change, arguing that LNG exports produce methane, which scientists consider an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. 

Citing a Jan. 20 executive order Trump signed, the Energy Department said Jan. 21 that its Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management "is directed to resume consideration of pending applications to export American liquefied natural gas to countries without a free trade agreement with the United States."

Chris Wright, Trump's nominee to run the Energy Department, had already told senators in a confirmation hearing that he was looking forward to expanding LNG exports. Even using just its existing LNG capacity, the U.S. is the world's leading exporter of LNG.

A flare burns at Venture Global LNG in Cameron, La., in 2022. The facility, which exports liquefied natural gas, is one of several like it along the Gulf Coast. (AP)

Trump's action does not immediately approve any new projects, but it restarts what had been a frozen regulatory process. The Energy Department's announcement moved back the deadline for public comments on the policy from Feb. 18 to March 20.

Mark Finley, a fellow in energy and global oil at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, told The Dallas Morning News in July that although the pause didn't restrict existing export flows, "it certainly was a concern to countries that import U.S. LNG and plan to do more so in the future, such as Japan."

The U.S. is home to seven operational LNG terminals and at least five that are expected to come on line in the coming years, according to The Associated Press. The pause didn't affect these terminals, but more than a dozen other projects likely were. Those projects are now set to resume moving toward approval.

It will take time for new LNG projects to get regulated, and once they're approved, to be built and begin operating. But Trump's action removes an obstacle to starting that process. We rate the promise In the Works.

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