LNG Exports Shouldn't Be the Next Keystone Campaign
Pausing approvals for liquefied natural gas terminals may win Biden points with young voters, but it’s myopic energy policy.
How big is too big? The Aristidis I LNG tanker docked at the Cheniere Liquefaction facility in Texas.
Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg
The greenest White House the US has ever seen also happens to preside over a record-breaking domestic oil and gas boom. While that complicates Republican talking points, it also stokes a conflict within President Joe Biden’s own party that has now found its battleground: Liquefied natural gas.
LNG, as it is called, is gas that has been super-chilled into a liquid that can be shipped in tankers more flexibly than via traditional pipelines. While the US was expected two decades ago to become a big importer of LNG, the shale boom has led to it recently emerging as the world’s largest exporter. New plants under construction or proposed could more than double export capacity within five years.