Shelved Biden study found pollution impact of LNG exports minor

(Bloomberg) – When the Biden administration stopped approving licenses to export U.S. liquefied natural gas in January of last year, officials said they first needed to determine how those shipments would affect the environment and economy. 

But the federal government already had some of those answers. 

Just four months earlier, the Department of Energy had completed a study of the issue, concluding that ramped-up LNG exports would only modestly increase domestic residential gas prices and wouldn’t appreciably change global greenhouse gas emissions. 

That assessment, which has not previously been publicly released, was reviewed by Bloomberg News. A copy of the 70-page study, dated Sept. 5, 2023, and marked as a “final review draft,” was transmitted to House Republicans examining the LNG export pause.

The analysis is likely to intensify criticisms that President Joe Biden’s pause was politically motivated and could cast doubts on the results of a second assessment that the Energy Department released in conjunction with his export licensing moratorium in December 2024. That analysis came to different conclusions, predicting additional exports would lead to higher prices and greenhouse gas emissions. 

President Donald Trump lifted the pause on new LNG export licenses on his first day back in the White House. He’s already approved a license for Commonwealth LNG LLC to export gas to countries that aren’t free-trade partners with the U.S., and he’s set to do the same for Venture Global’s CP2 project in Louisiana as soon as Wednesday. 

But the final Biden-era LNG study still casts a shadow over Trump’s export approvals, which under federal law are meant to be granted only if they are found to be in the public interest. Project opponents have been expected to seize on the predictions in the second analysis in litigation challenging new approvals. 

That second assessment completed amid Biden’s LNG export pause is still being reviewed by the public, with a comment period due to close on Thursday. 

The initial, unreleased Energy Department study offered a different picture of the role of LNG exports, providing evidence that could even be used to justify more license approvals. 

In another case, Biden’s energy secretary described the second study as showing that more LNG exports “would lead to increases in global net emissions” across every studied scenario. However, the earlier 2023 analysis that was shelved found that in multiple scenarios, global greenhouse gas emissions would decline if US LNG exports climbed.