The administration's attack on natural gas is far more encompassing than I'd thought

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Last Wednesday, I wrote about Biden’s handlers’ cancellation of the huge LNG export project being built in Louisiana, but at that time, I hadn’t realized that they shut down 11, not just one of these planned facilities.

The White House is halting the permitting process for several [11]proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects over their potential impacts on climate change, an unprecedented move environmentalists have demanded in recent months.

In a joint announcement Friday morning, the White House and Department of Energy (DOE) said the pause would occur while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects' carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete. Climate activists have loudly taken aim at LNG export projects in recent weeks, arguing they will lead to a large uptick in emissions and worsen global warming.

"As our exports increase, we must review export applications using the most comprehensive up-to-date analysis of the economic, environmental and national security considerations," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters on a press call. "This action includes a pause on pending applications for exports of U.S. natural gas as LNG to non-free trade agreement countries until the department can update the underlying analyses for authorizations."

Hot Air takes note of this betrayal of our allies

Europe exposed to gas supply risk from extended Red Sea shut-in: Rystad Energy
Some 15.5 million tonnes of LNG was sent through the Red Sea to Europe last year, or 13% of the continent’s LNG supply

Industry observers have warned that a prolonged shut-in of the crucial Red Sea route to international shipping would pose a gas supply risk to Europe, which is increasingly looking at liquefied natural gas supplies from the Middle East region.

Multiple international oil & gas operators, including QatarEnergy, are now avoiding the critical Bal el-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea following attacks by Houthi rebels, disrupting marine traffic in the region.

…Europe could watch the LNG tankers arrive like clockwork from the US. Europe could depend on Joe.

Ah, yeah. Good times, good times.

All that was true until yesterday – it all came to a screeching halt in a blatant election year sop to the climate cult.

The Biden administration on Friday halted the approval of new licenses to export US liquefied natural gas while it scrutinizes how the shipments affect climate change, the economy and national security — a moratorium likely to disrupt plans for billions of dollars in projects.

The Energy Department study will build on an existing analysis that underpins the agency’s review of proposals to send more natural gas to European, Asian and other countries that are not US free-trade partners. New exports are now vetted on a case-by-case basis to see whether they are in the public interest — a threshold established by federal law — but government assumptions used in those reviews haven’t been updated since 2018.

This attack on the oil industry by Biden's masters is more than just a sop to their base* and a helping hand to the administration’s friends and our enemies, Russia and Iran — it’s intended as a warning to investors and oil producers not to put money into the industry because whatever they put in can and will be erased with the stroke of a pen. These LNG producers spent hundreds of millions designing and planning these projects and meeting every single environmental law and regulation demanded by the government. By law, they were entitled to proceed, yet, just like his cancellation of Keystone XL, Biden simply issued an executive order and — poof! What was legal last week is now forbidden.

The intention is to remind anyone considering investing capital in fossil fuels that any money put in can and will be lost; if not this year, or even during the next four, if a Republican takes office, but upon the return of a Democrat administration. Industry plans decades out: the goal here is to make that impossible.

*Before Wednesday's move, members of the administration met with a 25-year-old TikTok influencer who had launched a social media campaign attempting to get young voters to urge Biden to kill the proposed project, according to the New York Times.