Energy Secretary Wright confirms the DOE had already completed an LNG study before Biden’s ban

Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed on Wednesday the existence of a Department of Energy study on liquefied natural gas (LNG) that was completed prior to the Biden administration’s ban on LNG exports. 

“I was extremely disappointed to see what was done. In fact, last night I was reading the original report on LNG prepared by the Department of Energy in 2023 that clearly showed it was in America’s interest to grow our LNG exports, and it wouldn’t impact domestic prices and, in fact, it would lower greenhouse emissions,” Wright said in an interview with Fox News’ Stuart Varney on the “Varney & Co” show Wednesday morning. 

Rumors and denials

In January 2024, then-President Joe Biden issued a moratorium on export permits for LNG to countries without free trade agreements with the U.S., which includes European countries. The purpose of the pause, according to the Biden administration, was to allow time for the Department of Energy to study whether LNG exports were in the public interest. This included determining if LNG exports would increase domestic natural gas prices and accelerate global warming. The purpose was explained in a now deleted White House web page that has been archived here.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News in January that he had asked Biden about why he chose to pause export permits for LNG, and Biden insisted that he never enacted any such moratorium. Johnson said Biden's statement filled him with "fear and loathing," as it suggested Biden wasn't actually running the country. 

Opponents of the policy blasted the science and reasoning for the decision, and multiple congressional hearings attempted to learn more about what led to it. 

In October, the House Oversight Committee learned that the DOE had completed a study on LNG exports earlier, in 2023. In a letter to then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, and Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said that the DOE had never mentioned or provided this draft study in communications with or hearings before the House Oversight Committee.

In December of 2024, Brad Crabtree, who was then assistant secretary for fossil energy and carbon management at the DOE, testified at an Oversight Committee hearing that he wasn’t aware of any completed study in 2023. He told the Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs subcommittee that DOE staff discussions about potentially updating the 2018 study on the economic impacts of LNG exports were happening at the time he joined the administration in May 2022. 

“There are many facets to this analysis. Each of them involves modeling. Each of them has a qualitative and quantitative analytical component. And so I imagine what you're referring to is early documentation of that sort. But a complete study did not exist in 2023,” Crabtree said.

Competing studies from same agency

A couple of weeks after the 2024 hearing, the DOE released a contrary study it had been working on during Biden’s moratorium. The study found that “unfettered” exports of LNG would increase wholesale domestic natural gas prices by more than 30%, costing the average American household well over $100 more per year by 2050. The study also claimed that U.S. LNG exports would displace more renewables than they would displace coal, resulting in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a December 2024 statement that the study proves that “a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable.”

The study also argued that demand for natural gas had “flattened” in Europe, which is a primary consumer of U.S. LNG exports, and demand would decrease as it had in Japan and South Korea. Therefore, existing LNG permits and export capacity are enough for any future global demand.

“In the decade to come, we will see strong and mounting pressure within our democratic system to ensure that the United States uses its market position in a way that truly advances our national interest and energy security, which must include the needs of American workers, American families, and our responsibility to address the climate crisis,” the latter study said. 

Just The News has been unable to obtain or review the earlier study that was allegedly never disclosed.

Lawfare ahead

Critics argued the study released by Granholm was politicized and unreliable. 

Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said in a statement that the study “epitomizes four years of misguided energy policy.” Jeff Eshelman, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, argued in a statement that LNG exports have reduced the trade deficit, helped allies counter Russian aggression due the decreased dependence on Russian supplies, and provided hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

The study — as presented by Granholm — apparently had little influence on the Trump administration. Upon taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, “Unleashing American Energy,” which directed the DOE to “restart reviews of applications for approvals of liquefied natural gas export projects as expeditiously as possible, consistent with applicable law.” That effectively ended Biden’s pause. 

While the study didn’t stop Trump’s plan to undo the Biden administration’s climate agenda, according to The New York Times, the study upon which Biden purportedly relied may provide legal arguments for environmentalists who plan to conduct lawfare against LNG permits. That would, if successful, block European consumers from accessing energy from U.S. fossil fuels. The existence of a DOE study in 2023 that came to very different conclusions may complicate those arguments.