Input Stories

The Energy Department is rescinding a policy by the previous administration that placed restrictions on liquefied natural gas export terminal developers looking to extend shipment-start deadlines (POLITICO Pro, subscription). 
 
What’s going on: “In a Tuesday filing in the Federal Register, the DOE said the department’s April 2023 policy statement ‘does not align with policies set forth’ in President Donald Trump’s ‘unleashing American energy’ executive order.”  

• The DOE said in the filing, published yesterday, that the policy “poses an undue burden” on natural gas export authorization holders by “demanding significant time and resources.”
• In 2023, the DOE said it would no longer consider applications to extend export-start dates unless an applicant could prove that a permit holder had started building a facility already and “its inability to comply with the existing export commencement deadline” was due to uncontrollable extenuating circumstances.
• The agency will now revert to pre-2023 procedures and consider extensions “for good cause on a case-by-case basis,” it said. 

Cutting red tape: In comments similar to those made by the NAM in its campaign to end the previous administration’s LNG export permit ban, DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Tala Goudarzi told POLITICO: “Throughout the past few years, many factors, including the actions of the prior administration, have made it unnecessarily rigid to obtain and maintain an authorization to export U.S. LNG to non-free trade agreement countries.”   

• President Trump ended the LNG export permit moratorium on his first day in office.   

Our take: “By ending this policy, the Trump administration continues to restore the LNG export application process to its former status, boosting domestic job creation and economic growth and pushing the U.S. toward achieving energy dominance,” said NAM Director of Energy and Resources Policy Michael Davin.