On Sat, 16 Dec 2023 05:47:48 -0500, Corn Kings <remailer@domain.invalid> wrote:

>The Biden administration’s plans for increased natural gas exports
>are causing a revolt within the Democratic Party.

Reason enough to give the Dems a swift kick in the ass.

Swill

>
>Despite the boom in renewables reducing domestic demand for fossil
>fuels, the administration is backing the gas industry’s plans to
>sell fuel at higher prices abroad, believing they will lead to less
>production of climate-warming chemicals like carbon dioxide by
>displacing dirtier-burning coal.
>
>The fossil fuel industry is making a broader transition to gas,
>which it is seeking to pitch as a climate-friendly fuel — and the
>Biden administration has so far allowed it to more than double the
>number of export facilities to ship gas abroad in its pressurized
>and liquified form (LNG).
>
>
>Democratic senators, led by Ed Markey (Mass.), have called on the
>administration to stop investing in gas plants abroad, noting that
>the administration has already spent $1.8 billion on overseas fossil
>fuel plants this year alone, along with voting at the World Bank to
>direct $400 million in new gas financing to poorer countries.
>
>“The United States can’t preach temperance from a bar stool, and
>right now, America is drunk on oil and gas production and exports,�
>Markey wrote Wednesday.
>
>In addition, 32 Democratic members of Congress urged the
>administration in November to begin planning for the end of fossil
>fuels.
>
>At the United Nations climate conference (COP28) that concluded this
>week, the administration unveiled a new plan to cut leaks from
>methane production, the predominant component in gas, in an effort
>to reduce one of the most serious sources of harmful pollution.
>
>But in focusing only on leaks from transporting the fuel — something
>the industry already has incentives to do — the Biden administration
>is “ducking the hard issueâ€? on climate change, Rep. Sean Casten (D-
>Ill.) told The Hill.
>
>
>Casten was one of 60 congressional Democrats who signed on to a
>November letter demanding the Department of Energy (DOE) reassess
>whether the new LNG terminals were in the national interest — a
>condition required for new gas exports under the 1931 Natural Gas
>Act.
>
>Democrats like Casten argue that the elephant in the room is that
>much of the surge in production isn’t intended to be used by
>Americans. In 2022, the U.S. exported nearly 7 trillion cubic feet
>of gas — a record sum and about 20 percent of total production,
>according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The
>administration expects those exports to increase to about 10
>trillion cubic feet by 2050, driving rising domestic production —
>even as domestic consumption falls.
>
>“Is it in the U.S. national interest for us to decarbonize our
>economy and continue ramping up fossil fuel production and export
>overseas?� Casten told The Hill.
>
>“I don’t think the DOE has even tried to answer that question,â€? he
>said, though he added that such an expansion was “clearly in the
>natural gas industry’s interest.â€?
>
>
>Like the Obama administration — under which fossil fuel exports
>became legal for the first time in half a century — the Biden
>administration has been broadly bullish on gas. Last year, as oil
>prices soared, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called on the
>nation’s oil companies to raise production.
>
>And in April, even as the secretary emphasized the importance of
>increasing renewable production fourfold, she also proclaimed
>support for further gas exports.
>
>“We want to be able to ensure that our allies can turn on the
>lights,â€? she said. “We know that natural gas is available right now.
>We have an abundance. So, we’re going to be a friend to our allies.â€?
>
>
>In addition to national security, the Biden administration has
>framed increased drilling for oil and gas and increased exports as
>necessary measures to help the U.S. and allies get through the
>period before renewables and electric vehicles can take over.
>
>Defending the administration’s controversial approval of the Willow
>project — a ConocoPhillips plan to produce oil for decades on
>Alaska’s pristine North Slope — Granholm told Bloomberg, “We are
>going through a managed transition,â€? and “we still have to allow
>people to get from place to place affordably and turn on the
>lights.�
>
>
>While some research backs up the administration’s position, it is
>highly controversial for both climatic and economic reasons.
>
>First, while gas burns about twice as clean as coal, it still
>releases planet-warming carbon dioxide — and it is a very potent
>warming agent in its own right.
>
>The gas that spills from the industry’s notoriously leaky supply
>chain warms the planet dozens of times more than an equivalent
>amount of carbon dioxide.
>
>In addition to the problem of leaks, exporters must pressurize,
>refrigerate and ship LNG across the ocean on fossil-fuel-burning
>tanker ships.
>
>Once all that is factored in, according to October research from
>Cornell University, the refrigerated and pressurized form of the gas
>that the Biden administration is backing may heat the climate more
>than coal does.
>
>Under the plan the Biden administration unveiled at COP28, the
>administration is poised to take on the problem of leaks.
>
>But as it continues to support growing production and exports from
>the industry, it faces resistance not just from congressional
>Democrats, but also from environmentalists and the residents of
>impacted areas.
>
>One particular emerging battleground is on the Louisiana Gulf Coast,
>where gas exporter Venture Global LNG is waiting for federal
>regulators to grant permission to expand its new Calcasieu Pass
>export terminal, which would export liquified gas to Europe and East
>Asia for the next 20 years.
>
>That’s a proposal that’s controversial for many residents. The
>opposition is partly due to climate concerns. But it also stems from
>protracted local pollution from the facility, which, as of the
>summer, has been cited more than 130 times by Louisiana state
>regulators for unauthorized pollution.
>
>When local residents compared state statistics with their own
>observations of unauthorized — and unreported — flaring of chemicals
>by Venture Global, which occurs when flammable chemicals are burned
>off to relieve a pressure buildup, they found that the facility had
>been in violation of its permit nearly two-thirds of the days it
>operated, according to a coalition of local civic groups.
>
>With most of the proposed export terminal expansion clustered on the
>Gulf Coast, many residents are worried.
>
>
>That protest coincided with a letter from a coalition of
>environmental and civic groups urging the Biden administration “to
>publicly commit during COP to no further regulatory, financial, or
>diplomatic support for LNG in the United States or anywhere in the
>world.�
>
>And Calcasieu Pass is just the beginning. Seventeen export
>facilities — more than double the existing number — have been
>approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Seven more are
>awaiting approval.
>
>In the November national interest letter, Democratic members of
>Congress argued that by considering these facilities one by one,
>rather than in the aggregate — and always assuming LNG is good for
>the climate — the DOE “ignores the aggregate impact that the
>explosive growth in U.S. LNG exports is having on climate,
>communities, and our economy.�
>
>The lawmakers urged the department to “consider at what point
>additional export licenses are no longer consistent with the public
>interest.�
>
>The fossil fuel industry has argued that it can all but eliminate
>the climate impacts of gas by a huge scale-up in carbon capture
>technology, which traps the planet-warming chemicals released by
>burning fossil fuels.
>
>But a report by the International Energy Agency — which considers
>methane control measures essential but has called large-scale carbon
>capture an “illusionâ€? — suggests that the current level of carbon
>capture investment is less than 0.1 percent of what would be needed
>to address climate change meaningfully.
>
>Even if the gas industry successfully removes all the emissions from
>its whole supply chain, Casten argued, it will still leave massive
>climate issues on the table.
>
>In a world where “the U.S. looks like Norwayâ€? — with a clean grid at
>home and a relatively low-leak fossil fuel sector — gas exports to
>other jurisdictions would still threaten to scuttle U.S. climate
>plans, Casten said.
>
>That’s because even if the U.S. aggressively uses carbon capture on
>its gas plants, it has no control over what customer countries do,
>he noted.
>
>The Democrats pushing back on the Biden administration’s plans —
>many of whom, like Markey, hail from Northeastern states that still
>depend on gas for heating — are largely not anti-gas hawks.
>
>However, in addition to their climate concerns, they argued that the
>export terminals jack up domestic energy prices by forcing gas-
>dependent U.S. residents to compete with high overseas prices.
>
>That conclusion comes from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, which
>found that “higher LNG exports create a tighter domestic natural gas
>market,â€? on balance “increasing domestic natural gas prices.â€?
>
>Other fossil fuel companies have complained about this. On
>Wednesday, oil giant BP asked U.S. regulators to investigate Venture
>Global’s foreign deals — arguing that the company was ignoring its
>long-term contract customers to take advantage of more lucrative
>European opportunities.
>
>Experts also argue that LNG exports — which will not begin reaching
>Europe and Asia until almost 2030 and will require supply to
>continue for decades — will displace cheaper renewables.
>
>If the European Union follows its own decarbonization plans, “then
>by the time these new LNG terminals and pipelines enter operation,
>they would already not be needed anymore,� Simon Dekeyrel of
>Brussels-based think tank European Policy Center told Energy
>Monitor.
>
>But European environmental campaigners argue that whether or not the
>gas is needed, once the contracts take hold, it will have to be used
>— meaning it will crowd out renewables.
>
>That tracks with the findings of a 2021 meta-analysis that found
>that while gas might help “avoid greenhouse gas emissions in the
>short term, unintended long-term effects might also hinder the
>transition into renewables.�
>
>Casten said he’d be “receptiveâ€? to the argument that U.S. LNG
>exports are needed to ensure European allies “still have warm homes
>and operating businesses.�
>
>“But is it in the U.S. national interest for us to sell that gas to
>Europe at a premium over what we’d be willing to sell it for in the
>United States?� he asked.
>
>“Because that’s wartime profiteering.â€?
>
>By failing to confront the gas industry’s production plans now, he
>argued, the Biden administration risks empowering a new “behemothâ€?
>that will use its decades of locked-in profits to lobby directly
>against the kinds of fossil fuel reduction the U.S. needs to pursue.
>
>
>The U.S., he noted, has not traditionally had a gas export industry
>— and only in 2015 were fossil fuel exports legalized.
>
>Is it in the national interest, he asked, to create an “industry
>with a vested political interest� in ensuring those exports
>continue?
>
>https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4362249-democrats-
>revolt-against-biden-expanded-natural-gas-exports-plan/
--
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