Facing significant pressure from environmentalists, President Joe Biden took a step to slow the galloping pace of the fossil fuel industry by pausing requests to ship more U.S. natural gas abroad. The decision announced this morning comes at the start of a reelection campaign shaping up as a rematch between Biden’s climate message and former President Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” appeal. Soaring exports of liquefied natural gas from terminals along the Gulf Coast have given the United States powerful leverage against Russian suppliers in Europe and Asia. But natural gas is also a source of heat-trapping methane emissions — and selling more and more of it collides with a U.S. commitment to join other nations in moving away from fossil fuels. During the trickle of news this month suggesting the White House was about to act, climate activists ran into a fossil fuel industry girding for a fight. Senate backers of the oil and gas industry chimed in, writes Kelsey Brugger. And Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called a decision to the export-permit freeze a “Green New Deal scheme” aimed at scoring political points. The White House fired back with a statement that seemed designed to appeal to young climate voters, many of whom are in critical swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin — and drew a contrast with Trump. “While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my administration will not be complacent,” Biden said. Under the policy change, the Department of Energy will pause decision-making on pending permit requests for LNG shipments while it conducts an open-ended analysis of the impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and energy prices, write Brian Dabbs and Carlos Anchondo. Climate campaigner Bill McKibben, the founder of the climate organization 350.org, has said green groups are already backing Biden. But he said the decision could rally enthusiasm among young voters who were dismayed by earlier Biden decisions — such as the administration’s approval of the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. Yet the victory for climate activists is limited. The United States is still a massive oil and gas producer. The administration has noted the U.S. will remain the world’s largest LNG exporter, with capacity expected to nearly double by 2030. The decision also won’t immediately affect a massive LNG export project in Louisiana known as CP2, a key target of environmentalists. About 40 percent of U.S. electricity demand is now met by natural gas generation. That means huge volumes of gas produced here stay here. The U.S. gas industry hit another production high in 2023, as it did in 2022. Drilling out of the Marcellus shale basin in Pennsylvania and West Virginia is going gangbusters, as are production out of Oklahoma and the huge oil and gas basin in West Texas. Oil and gas production are two sides of the same coin. The oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia is the world’s dominant oil exporter, but the United States is producing more oil than any single country.
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