When former President Joe Biden paused the Department of Energy’s approval of new natural gas export projects last January — a move received positively by environmental advocates and scorned by fossil fuel companies — the LNG industry was in the midst of a period of unbridled expansion. Sprawling export terminals had been popping up, one after another, all along the Gulf Coast in south Texas and Louisiana, with many more in various stages of planning. The consequences of the build-out on the climate and on consumers was uncertain, Biden said, echoing the concerns of advocates, and the DOE had a responsibility to understand them fully before greenlighting new developments.
“During this period, we will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security, and our environment,” the former president said in a statement. Though Biden’s pause on new LNG developments was celebrated by climate and environmental advocates, it only applied to DOE, not the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, the other agency responsible for approving gas developments.
Midway through the pause, while the DOE was assessing the advisability of new LNG developments, FERC approved the construction of a new plant by gas giant Venture Global.
Six months later, in December 2024, when government offices were beginning to empty for the winter holidays, the DOE quietly published the results of its research. Across 58 pages, the report succinctly confirmed what many climate and environmental justice advocates had feared: Exporting huge quantities of natural gas abroad increases domestic fuel and electricity prices. Not only that, but export terminals are massive greenhouse gas emitters, undermining the fossil fuel industry’s contention that LNG is a clean alternative to coal, and dumping hulking export terminals on pristine wetlands has a devastating effect on the multigenerational fishing communities of the Gulf Coast.
“Today’s publication reinforces that a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable,” the agency wrote in a press release announcing the report.
The following month, President Donald Trump began his second term, and rather than sending the mixed messages under the Biden administration, the federal government’s position on LNG exports became uniformly supportive. On his first full day in office, Trump ended Biden’s moratorium on new export projects. Then, in mid-February, FERC issued Venture Global another major greenlight.
In its supplemental environmental impact assessment, FERC determined that Venture Global’s CP2 LNG project presented “no significant emissions” to the surrounding area — a blatant contradiction of the DOE’s prior report. A week later, under the new leadership of former hydraulic fracking magnate Chris Wright, the DOE authorized Commonwealth LNG’s proposed export terminal. In its decision, the agency did not reference its own December report. The omission calls into question the candidness of Trump’s “America First” agenda, said Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.
“Every single Trump action, especially on energy, is designed to raise prices for Americans and maximize profits for the fossil fuel industry,” he said. “When you put the industry in charge of policy, the policy will reflect industry priorities.”
Both of the LNG export terminals that received approvals this month are slated for southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish, a wetland region that just a few decades ago was home to one of the largest seafood producers in the country. Though successive hurricane seasons and industrial development have crippled the industry, artisan fishermen and shrimpers continue to work in the parish, several of whom joined a lawsuit against FERC for approving Venture Global’s CP2 plant. After the lawsuit was filed, the commission set aside its authorization to make it more “legally durable,” explained Megan Gibson, a lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Center who works on LNG. The supplemental EIS issued earlier this month is supposed to provide that durability, and set the project back in motion.
“This EIS reads like [FERC] checking a box so that we can get this project built without assessing the impacts on the local community and quite frankly our national economy,” Gibson told Grist.
Venture Global’s CP2 facility would be one of the largest liquefied gas export terminals in the world. The plans consist of an 18-block liquefaction plant, a pre-treatment plant, massive aboveground storage tanks, and an 84-mile pipeline connecting the facility to natural gas feedstocks in Jasper and Newton County, Texas. The company already operates an LNG terminal in Louisiana’s Cameron Parish and is in the process of building a separate one in Plaquemines Parish in the state’s southeast. In 2023, Grist visited the property of John Allaire, whose land abuts the facility, and witnessed the hundred-foot flares emitted by the Venture Global’s smoke stacks — evidence of operational problems that advocates say the company has yet to solve. Before Venture Global can break ground on CP2, FERC will have to issue a final draft of the supplemental EIS, and DOE will have to issue an approval of its own.
Like other experts that Grist spoke to, Gibson said FERC’s actions didn’t surprise her since the commission has a reputation for rubber-stamping new gas projects under both Democratic and Republican administrations. It’s really the DOE, she continued, that has historically been more of a check on the industry. Under the National Gas Act, both FERC and DOE are required to determine whether a new LNG development is in the public interest before approving it. That burden of proof has been the easiest way for advocates to fight agency decisions in court.
“Transforming this once idyllic coastal community into this industrial hub … That doesn’t seem like it’s in the public interest,” said Gibson. Venture Global did not respond to a request for comment.
The DOE’s December 2024 report identifying risks to the public from unchecked LNG exports is currently open for public comment. The Trump administration extended the comment period until late March. Slocum, the director of the energy program at Public Citizen, believes that this decision may be a tactical one more than it is a genuine openness for public input — giving fossil fuel companies more time to commission studies that would undermine the DOE’s previous findings. In an email, Grist asked the DOE why they extended the comment period, but did not hear back.
“Industry is going to basically try to buy a pro-public interest analysis through some very expensive fancy studies that the DOE is going to rely heavily on,” Slocum said. It was his and other advocates’ job to poke holes in those studies. “We don’t have the money, but I think we have the facts on our side.”
Beyond the impacts to consumers, locals, and the climate, experts pointed out that building new LNG terminals in an already saturated market doesn’t make sense economically. A recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that Europe, the U.S.’s largest gas export market, experienced a 19 percent decline in LNG imports last year, with gas demand at an 11-year low. Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, IEEFA’s lead energy analyst for Europe, said the trend reflects new renewable projects coming online as well as countries using gas from their own reserves. While she expects demand to increase next year, in particular due to a cold early winter season and the need to replenish reserves, Jaller-Makarewicz said she does not expect it to rise again to levels seen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Trump administration appears undeterred by these figures. Earlier this month, Trump announced a joint venture with Japan for a proposed $44 billion LNG project in Alaska, a move that could make the East Asian country — which has the second-highest LNG demand in the world — more reliant on U.S. gas.
“There has to be a need for the project, and what we see with this project is that it’s essentially taking domestic U.S.-grade gas and shipping it overseas,” said Caroline Reiser, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council working on the case against FERC for approving CP2.
According to Reiser, whether or not Trump finds a market for the gas plants coming online, the American public could still be left holding the bag.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Exporting natural gas raises your power bills. Trump is doing it anyway. on Feb 27, 2025.
The administration’s efforts to solve a so-called “energy emergency” might create an actual crisis. Accountability, Climate & Energy, Energy, Regulation Grist
