Video: They Were For U.S. LNG – Before They Were Against It

Mark Green
Posted February 2, 2024

More on the Biden administration’s decision to freeze pending and future U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects that would supply allies – specifically, that restricting America’s LNG capacity appears to be a recently acquired taste.

Check out the video below, a compilation of notables, including President Biden himself, all praising the benefits of LNG from America to the world:

Recapping: U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, President Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel all discuss the importance of LNG to our allies’ security and global security – as well as LNG’s role in deterring Russian aggression in Europe: 

Sec. Granholm (January 2023): “We know that our liquefied natural gas exports have been a significant help to our allies ...” The secretary added: “It's very important to make sure that they have the means – we are fortunate that we have an abundance, obviously, of natural gas in this country. Our prices are low. But during times of challenge, we want to help our allies as well.”

President Biden (March 2022): “And as the EU works to discontinue buying Russian gas well before 2030, it will also work to ensure additional EU market demand for 50 billion cubic meters of LNG from the United States annually by 2030.”

Recall also that Biden said this in 2016 as vice president: “Here in the United States, we just inaugurated our liquified natural gas export terminal. We’ve already sent our first cargoes of gas to Latin America. That’s a critical step toward enhancing our collective energy security while lowering energy costs and reducing carbon emissions.”

Sec. Blinken (September 2022): The U.S. is “now the leading supplier of LNG to Europe to help compensate for any [natural] gas or oil that it’s losing as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

Amb. Emanuel (July 2023): “LNG can be a major contributor – with the reduction of methane – both on the global energy stability and security for every country, but also a contributor to our … our collective and individual goals as countries in seeing and meeting our objective by 2050 in net-zero.”

So, how to account for the sudden reversal of the president and key members of his administration – from glowing praise of U.S. LNG’s benefits to justify restricting it?

This sure looks like an election-year conversion, an attempt to appease climate activists in the administration’s political base – at the expense of our allies’ security, our own security and the reliability of America’s promises.

The truth is the Biden administration is taking a short-sighted view of Europe’s supply needs as it moves away from Russian natural gas. A recent study warns of a looming supply gap – one U.S. LNG can help meet.

As the Washington Post said in an editorial this week, the administration’s LNG decision is “an election-year sop to climate activists that will do much more to unsettle vital U.S. alliances than to save the planet.”

Using American energy for political gamesmanship is no way to conduct policy.