Vitality Secretary Jennifer Granholm talks throughout a session on the COP29 U.N. Local weather Summit Nov. 15, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Rafiq Maqbool/AP
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Rafiq Maqbool/AP
WASHINGTON — The US ought to proceed cautiously as officers think about new pure fuel export terminals, Vitality Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated Tuesday, warning the incoming Trump administration that “unfettered exports” of liquefied pure fuel, or LNG, might drive up home costs and improve planet-warming greenhouse fuel emissions.
Granholm’s assertion got here because the Vitality Division launched a long-awaited study on the environmental and economic impacts of natural gas exports, which have grown exponentially prior to now decade. The evaluation discovered that U.S. LNG shipments drive up home wholesale costs and continuously displace renewable vitality sources resembling wind and solar energy.
Elevated LNG exports additionally would result in increased international greenhouse fuel emissions, even with use of newly developed tools to seize and retailer carbon emissions, the report stated.
“Unfettered exports of LNG would improve wholesale home pure fuel costs by over 30%,” costing American households a further $100 a 12 months by 2050, Granholm stated
“We have now not too long ago lived by the real-world ripple results of elevated vitality costs domestically and globally because the (COVID-19) pandemic, she stated, including that an “export-induced value improve” would make it tougher for some households to satisfy fundamental wants.
“At the moment’s publication reinforces {that a} business-as-usual method (to LNG exports) is neither sustainable nor advisable,″ Granholm stated.
The Vitality Division report comes after the Biden administration paused approvals of latest LNG tasks in January to review the consequences LNG exports have on the planet. Pure fuel emits methane, a potent greenhouse fuel, when burned, leaked or launched.
The oil and fuel {industry}, together with Republican allies in Congress, have decried the LNG pause as pointless and counter-productive, and President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to finish the pause on his first day in workplace. The pause is on maintain below a federal courtroom order, however the Vitality Division not too long ago stated it will not determine on two main LNG export tasks in Louisiana till the impartial Federal Vitality Regulatory Fee completes environmental evaluations.
Trump’s transition workforce declined direct touch upon the examine, however stated Trump “will make America vitality dominant once more” and shield U.S. vitality jobs after 4 years of “warfare on American vitality” below President Joe Biden.
“Voters re-elected President Trump by a convincing margin, giving him a mandate to implement the guarantees he made on the marketing campaign path, together with decreasing vitality prices for shoppers,” stated spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
Nonetheless, the examine might hinder Trump’s plans to instantly greenlight tasks to export LNG. Trump stated final week that anybody making a $1 billion funding in america “will obtain totally expedited approvals and permits, together with, however under no circumstances restricted to, all Environmental approvals.”
Environmentalists have stated they are going to use the DOE evaluation in lawsuits anticipated over any Trump administration approvals of LNG tasks. Activists decry the multi-billion greenback export terminals as “local weather bombs.”
LNG is particularly vitality intensive, because the fuel have to be retrieved by underground drilling, then piped to export terminals alongside the East and Gulf coasts. The fuel is then “superchilled” right into a liquid that’s taken by tanker ships to import terminals in Europe and Asia, the place it’s then reheated into fuel and distributed for enterprise and household use.
The American Fuel Affiliation referred to as the Biden administration’s pause a mistake that has resulted in uncertainty for the worldwide market, traders and America’s allies around the globe.
“This report is a transparent and inexplicable try to justify their grave coverage error,” stated AGA president and CEO Karen Harbert. “America’s allies are affected by the weaponization of pure fuel and vitality deprivation, and any limitations on supplying life important vitality is completely wrong-headed.”
Harbert stated the {industry} group seems ahead to working with the Trump administration “to rectify the obtrusive points with this examine through the public remark interval,” which lasts till mid-February.
The DOE report got here as an impartial evaluation discovered that elevated LNG exports would assist practically half 1,000,000 home jobs and contribute $1.3 trillion to U.S. gross home product by 2040. The examine, launched Tuesday by the analysis agency S&P World, tasks that U.S. LNG export capability will double over the subsequent 5 years, with little impression on home costs.
“The emergence of the U.S. LNG {industry} has positioned america within the pole place with international demand for fuel anticipated to develop by 2040, alongside the fast development of renewables,” stated Daniel Yergin, the group’s vice chairman and a Pulitzer Prize-winning creator.
U.S. LNG “stays a significant device for nations seeking to displace dirtier fuels” resembling coal, stated Charlie Riedl, government director of the Middle for LNG, a pro-industry group. U.S. fuel shipments to Europe and Asia have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The LNG pause, introduced by Biden because the 2024 election 12 months started, aligned the Democratic administration with environmentalists who concern the massive improve in LNG exports in recent times is locking in probably catastrophic planet-warming emissions at a time when Biden has pledged to chop U.S. local weather air pollution in half by 2030.
“Whereas MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the local weather disaster, condemning the American folks to a harmful future, my administration won’t be complacent,″ Biden stated in saying the pause. His actions “heed the calls of younger folks and frontline communities who’re utilizing their voices to demand” local weather motion, Biden added.
Environmental teams hailed the DOE examine, saying it discovered clear proof of LNG’s local weather, financial, nationwide safety and public well being risks.
“This examine confirms that Donald Trump’s plans to supercharge LNG exports will come on the expense of shoppers and the local weather,” stated Raena Garcia, senior vitality campaigner at Associates of the Earth. She urged Biden and Granholm to reject all pending LNG tasks as towards the general public curiosity.
“If Trump needs to drive up harmful fuel exports, he will must reply for inflicting extra lethal storms, condemning the Rice’s whale to extinction and socking shoppers with increased prices,” stated Lauren Parker, an legal professional on the Middle for Organic Range, one other environmental group.
Parker’s remark refers to an endangered whale species within the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists say offshore drilling for oil and fuel threatens the species’ habitat.
