By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden released a long-awaited study on the economic and environmental impacts of liquefied exports on Tuesday, saying the results underscored the need for a cautious approach to new permits.
Biden in January had paused the Department of Energy’s approvals of U.S. LNG exports to big consumers in Asia and Europe so that his administration could conduct the review, triggering complaints from the oil and gas industry.
“The main takeaway is that a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters ahead of the release of the study. Granholm said in a letter about the study’s findings that rising LNG exports risk dramatically raising greenhouse gas emissions and could also trigger price hikes for U.S. energy consumers.
Incoming President Donald Trump, a climate-change skeptic and a big supporter of fossil fuel development, has promised to immediately end the moratorium on new LNG export permits when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20.
The study is meant to inform Energy Department decisions on new permits to export the gas. The department is required by law to determine whether exports are in the public interest.
Liquefied natural gas is natural gas that has been super-cooled to a liquid state, reducing its volume and allowing it to be transported to places pipelines do not reach.
When asked if the results of the study would give LNG opponents legal grounds to challenge new LNG export permits in court, a DOE official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that it should first be a consideration for any U.S. energy secretary. The official added that proponents of being cautious on LNG have a variety of recourses in Congress and in the courts, which the study could inform.
The study contained various scenarios of the impacts of LNG exports depending on domestic and international climate policies, technologies and resource availability.
