Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
The Energy Department will issue its long-awaited report on LNG exports soon — but legal and political fighting over it is likely to continue.
Why it matters: The study — which coincided with a pause on issuing LNG export licenses — will spell out whether the DOE sees the need to halt or require more of project developers.
- The industry argues that the scrutiny creates uncertainty for future investment.
Zoom in: The incoming Trump administration and Republicans want to scrap the study and continue LNG exports — but that may raise further legal risk if it contradicts the study's findings.
- The study could delay Trump's intent to approve pending applications by "anywhere from several months to several calendar quarters to revise or revisit study results," ClearView Energy Partners said in a Thursday note to clients.
Brad Crabtree, head of DOE's Fossil Energy and Carbon Management office, defended the study during a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday.
- Without a fresh study — it was last updated in the late 2010s — applicants "face likely legal challenges alleging the DOE improperly relied on outdated analysis in making its public interest determinations," Crabtree said.
- Crabtree emphasized that the agency had already approved 48 billion cubic feet of gas exports that will continue flowing this decade, regardless of future export approvals.
- After the study is issued in the middle of this month, Crabtree said, the agency plans a 60-day comment period — which obviously overlaps the administration change.
Friction point: Rep. Pat Fallon told Crabtree the ban is economically harmful and unnecessary.
- "You could be doing a study and also having an American company export a vital resource — because they're either going to get it from New Mexico or Texas or some other state in our union, or they're going to get it from Moscow."
The other side: Rep. Melanie Stansbury — who's weighing a bid to be Natural Resources ranking member — suggested that Republicans were doing the gas industry's bidding.
- The hearing is "clearly in the service of creating a congressional record so that when the Trump administration comes in, there's some legal and possibly congressional teeth to whatever fight these private companies are hoping to take on," she said.
