0:01

Welcome to Power Decisions, the energy

0:03

series that explores the world's energy

0:05

sources and the politics and power

0:08

behind the clean transition. I'm

0:10

journalist and correspondent Liz Landers, and I'll be

0:12

your host today. The United States

0:14

will withdraw from

0:18

the Paris climate

0:22

accord. We can't build a future

0:25

that's made in America if we

0:27

ourselves are dependent on China for the

0:29

materials that power the products of today

0:31

and tomorrow. We must look

0:34

for ways and ensure the

0:36

inclusion of the role

0:39

of fossil fuels. This

0:41

is a pivotal moment. Our

0:43

action collectively, or

0:45

worse, our inaction, will

0:48

impact billions of people for

0:51

decades to come. In January,

0:53

the Biden administration announced a pause

0:55

on proposed liquid natural gas export

0:57

projects in the U.S. In

1:00

2023, the United States became

1:02

the number one exporter of LNG,

1:04

more than Qatar or Australia.

1:07

American LNG exports have helped Europe

1:09

keep the lights on as the

1:11

war between Ukraine and Russia severed

1:13

other energy sources. But President Biden,

1:15

in keeping with his climate commitments

1:18

to younger voters and green groups,

1:20

announced the pause several weeks ago

1:22

while his administration conducts public

1:24

interest reviews on future

1:26

projects. We've assembled a

1:28

great roundtable of reporters. Joining us

1:31

today are three reporters with decades

1:33

of experience covering energy policy. Tim

1:36

Gardner is a reporter for Reuters. Ben

1:38

Lefebvre is an energy reporter for Politico.

1:40

And Zach Budrick is an energy and

1:42

environment reporter at The Hill. Thank

1:45

you guys for joining us. I wanted to start

1:47

with you, Ben. Tell

1:49

me about this decision. Why did

1:51

the Biden administration decide to put

1:54

a pause on these liquid natural

1:56

gas exports? There's two reasons, and

1:58

I think you can argue

2:00

which reason takes precedent, but

2:02

there's a political reason and

2:05

a kind of government regulation reason.

2:07

The regulation reason is basically the

2:09

US LNG industry has just gone

2:12

gangbusters since kind of starting out

2:14

in the lower 48 in 2016, where we're shipping increasing amounts

2:19

of gas overseas, and we're

2:21

expected to do more. I mean, I was

2:23

looking up on the energy information administration website

2:26

before this podcast. Right now, we're

2:28

exporting about 10% of US natural

2:30

gas overseas, and that's expected to double

2:32

by the end of this decade. As

2:34

demand has kind of dried up here,

2:36

or it's not growing as much here,

2:39

overseas markets really where all this is going.

2:41

And the Biden administration is saying we need to take a

2:43

pause. As all these new facilities

2:46

come online, are we looking at the

2:48

right things when we measure their climate

2:50

impacts? Are we looking at the right

2:52

things when we measure their domestic economic

2:55

impacts? Basically, this is really, I

2:57

don't want to say gotten out of hand, but

2:59

this has really grown a lot faster than people

3:01

expected. So maybe we need to tap the brakes a

3:03

little bit for, I don't know, a year or so,

3:06

and look at, is this going where

3:08

we want it to go? The other

3:10

reason is after

3:13

the Biden administration approved the

3:15

massive Willow oil project

3:17

in Alaska last year, and they needed

3:19

to kind of say, well, we had

3:22

to do Willow because there's no legal

3:24

reason we couldn't do it, but

3:27

we've got a lot of people increasingly

3:29

worrying about the impacts of natural gas

3:31

on climate change. So we need

3:33

to do something to show them that

3:35

we're still on their side. And this

3:37

is importantly, that our environmental allies have

3:40

a win they can bring back to their

3:42

own supporters and say, well, look, you guys

3:44

have been donating for years. Here's

3:47

something we can bring home as a tangible that the

3:49

Biden administration said, we need to look at whether

3:52

we should continue with LNG exports at the same

3:54

pace as we have been. Okay, I want to

3:56

get to some of the international reaction and

3:58

also the domestic. Let's talk a little bit

4:01

first about the domestic United States reaction.

4:04

I know that you were covering some of this from the

4:06

Capitol Hill and lawmaker angle. What

4:11

did you hear from lawmakers, from

4:13

members of Congress about this decision when it

4:15

came out a few weeks ago at the

4:17

beginning of this year, 2024? Well,

4:22

the Republicans and Congress have been fired

4:24

up about this. The knives

4:27

have been out on the Biden

4:29

administration's energy policies in general, even

4:31

as we are reaching all-time highs

4:33

for oil production under the Biden

4:35

administration. But there's been

4:37

some bipartisan criticism as well. Michael

4:40

Bennett of the Democrat of Colorado

4:42

has been fairly vocally disagreeing with

4:44

this decision as well. And

4:47

there are plenty of Democrats

4:49

in Congress who are not necessarily

4:53

in step with the Biden administration

4:55

on energy environmental policy. But

4:58

I would not call him a

5:00

major voices necessarily that tends to

5:02

come from people like Joe Manchin.

5:04

Yeah, Manchin actually had a hearing about

5:07

this decision not that

5:09

long ago within the last few weeks. I

5:12

saw Manchin said during that

5:14

hearing, this decision was the wrong

5:16

direction for our country. So you're

5:18

right. There are some Democrats

5:20

who are out there who are not

5:22

in agreement with the Biden administration's decision

5:24

on this. I want to ask

5:26

and turn back to you, Ben, about

5:29

the sort of international reaction

5:31

as well, because this

5:33

decision, as you said, we're not using

5:36

a lot of this liquid natural gas

5:39

just here in the U.S. We're exporting

5:41

it, and it's actually played a really big role

5:43

in this conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

5:47

What were some of the EU allies

5:49

saying about this? Are

5:51

they concerned that they might not have energy

5:54

supplies in the near future? What was

5:57

kind of the reaction from some of our allies around

5:59

the world? There was a public reaction

6:01

and then there's been more of a private

6:03

reaction. The public reaction is being led by European

6:05

businesses who have argued

6:08

that, look, USLNG is one of the reasons

6:10

that there's still a fight against

6:13

Russia and Ukraine. I mean, as we remember,

6:15

Russian President Vladimir Putin kind of bet

6:17

that if they cut off gas,

6:19

the Europeans would freeze in the winter

6:21

and resolve to keep it

6:24

going against Russia for Ukraine, but kind of

6:26

erode. But USLNG was key

6:28

in keeping the gas fires burning in Europe

6:30

at that time. But

6:33

in the subsequent years, kind of

6:35

helped out by mild winters, European

6:37

gas inventory is

6:39

full. And this kind

6:41

of opened the door for environmental groups in

6:43

the US and in Europe to say, we

6:46

don't particularly need any more LNG. Thank you. I

6:48

mean, we've got our contracts for what we have. We don't need to add

6:51

on to it. Going back to what

6:53

Zach said about Republicans having knives out on this

6:55

policy is they've been calling it a ban. And

6:58

this was repeated all over the hearing. It's a ban,

7:00

it's a ban, it's a ban. It's not a ban.

7:02

It's saying, you know, everything that's in the production line

7:04

will still go on. We're just not going to approve

7:06

any new permits. The European Trade

7:09

Association kind of played into that and said, well, if

7:11

there's a ban on US gas, you're just going to

7:13

force us back into the hands of Russia. Having

7:16

said that, when you talk to some European government

7:18

officials with the European Commission, they'll say this isn't

7:20

a big deal, at least for them. I mean,

7:23

they've got their own agenda. They want to move

7:25

more towards clean energy. They

7:27

feel they have sufficient contracts for gas

7:29

already signed that they don't need any

7:31

more. If you're going to take a pause

7:33

out for eight months, you're fine. I

7:35

will say that this has

7:37

really scared the Japanese government

7:40

officials, or I've heard from a number of them. They

7:43

kind of took this almost as

7:45

if they have never heard of domestic politics

7:47

before, where it's kind of like I've had

7:49

talks with some Japanese government officials who are

7:52

like, this is going to shake the faith

7:54

in the US LNG industry as being a

7:56

reliable partner. If they

7:58

really go through and find that they're there's reason

8:00

to stop new permits and

8:03

LNG exports. I've told them, just

8:05

speaking personally, I don't have any inside information on

8:07

this, I don't see this resulting

8:09

in any large scale ban of exports. You

8:12

know, there may be some kind of stricter

8:14

regulations put in place, but I see this

8:16

as, on one hand, the

8:18

regulatory break tamping that we

8:21

talked about, on the other hand, it's being like

8:23

domestic politics. And, you know, I

8:25

mentioned the Japanese official, the same way that Japan

8:27

had to figure out what to do about restarting

8:29

its nuclear reactors is kind of the way this

8:31

is playing out here on LNG exports. Could I

8:33

piggyback on something that Ben said? Yeah,

8:35

it's spot on in terms of this being distinct

8:37

from a ban, but I think you run into

8:40

sort of a messaging challenge on the part of

8:42

the Biden administration, and you have this as well

8:44

when, upon taking office,

8:46

he stopped new leasing for

8:48

oil and gas on public

8:51

lands, because on

8:53

the one hand, that's distinct from

8:55

an outright ban, so it's misleading

8:57

for Republicans to call it

8:59

a ban. But on the other hand, if

9:01

you want something to tout to your allies

9:04

in the environmental movement, you have to present

9:08

it as there being a there, there. You can't

9:10

just say, yeah, this isn't really a big deal.

9:12

It's because it's not a full ban. I think

9:14

one thing that I read in some of your

9:16

reporting, Ben, and I think you were just hitting

9:18

on this point, Zach, was that

9:20

this is kind of about the

9:22

climate ambitions of the Biden administration.

9:24

This president saying that he is

9:26

going to make sweeping changes on

9:28

the environment and addressing climate change

9:31

versus his foreign policy agenda

9:33

and kind of the limits

9:35

on the US natural gas exports

9:38

could limit US diplomacy.

9:40

Do you see that as being

9:42

a problem here? Not

9:44

so much. I think at the end of

9:47

the day, this is going to be almost

9:49

an exact replay of the Biden's

9:51

interior department's kind of pause on oil and gas

9:53

leasing, where they did this pause for as long

9:56

as they were politically able to do and at

9:58

the end of the day, they said, we're still

10:00

going to do oil and gas leasing, but we're

10:02

going to raise the fees, we're going to limit

10:04

the amount of land we're going to make available,

10:06

but it's still kind of going on. I see

10:09

this as them doing the same thing with natural

10:11

gas exports. At the end of the day, they

10:13

might say, well, you got to

10:15

have this new technology to scrub the methane

10:17

emissions or carbon emissions from the gas, but

10:19

eventually we'll still let it go. And I

10:22

think they're able to make that case diplomatically

10:25

where they'll say, the EIA has this

10:27

list of projects that are under construction,

10:29

but already permitted for new exports. And

10:31

that goes until 2028, even if just

10:35

the way things are right now. So they can

10:37

tell the EU, you're still going to have new

10:39

capacity coming online for the next four

10:41

years. And by

10:43

that time, we'll have this study kind of finished,

10:46

and hopefully there'll be actually no break

10:49

in building. So I think they're able

10:51

to pedal that is just kind of,

10:53

we know what you may think this

10:56

is going on, given all the stern and

10:58

drung about all this, but it's not

11:00

going to result in you losing any

11:02

cargos. The European Commission executive vice president

11:04

met with Biden administration officials, and he

11:06

said after that meeting actually that this

11:09

would not impact US supplies to

11:11

Europe for liquid natural gas over

11:13

the next two to three years.

11:16

But I do wonder though, what

11:18

are the long-term impacts for national security

11:20

and for even the economy? Zach or

11:22

Ben jump in. I think

11:25

that largely depends on what the

11:28

Ukraine-Russia conflict looks like going forward. Clearly

11:30

Vladimir Putin did not expect it to

11:32

play out as long as it has

11:34

already. I think that first year of

11:36

the conflict when the winter was particularly

11:39

tough was really when a lot of

11:41

the anxiety came in as our

11:43

gas supply going to be enough. But we've

11:45

had two years of mild winters, given climate

11:47

change, I don't necessarily think mild winters

11:49

are going to be a thing of the past. So

11:52

I think we can't really predicate

11:54

European national security on this

11:56

one policy move. I

11:59

think if you saw the war continue

12:01

for like, you know, five or six years,

12:03

there might be questions, but then that's kind

12:06

of like you're just getting outside of, you

12:08

know, the accuracy of what you can forecast

12:10

from this one policy move. Right. Just

12:12

a little bit more in terms of the

12:14

geopolitical potential fallout

12:16

from this decision. The United

12:19

States is also dealing with conflicts

12:21

across the Middle East, their rising

12:23

tensions in the South China

12:25

Sea. I just wonder if

12:27

you guys think that those other

12:29

areas besides just this land war

12:31

that's happening between Russia and Ukraine

12:33

could also impact or be

12:36

impacted by this pause. Yeah, it's

12:38

been interesting. So the market

12:40

has shifted. It used to be it

12:43

all went to Asia, mostly Japan, China,

12:45

South Korea, and then some of it would go to

12:47

Europe. But with Europe, you know, Europe

12:49

had been supplied by Russia, so they weren't a

12:51

huge market for us. But when the big shift

12:54

went to get away from Russian gas, the trade

12:56

route basically shifted. I

12:58

don't see these new conflicts

13:01

coming into play, except I think

13:03

there's a big question marked with

13:06

what do we do about exports

13:08

to China? And that's been one of

13:10

the interesting kind of side issues that's

13:12

come up, where Democrats have really been

13:15

pounding on this idea that, well, you

13:17

know, Republicans want to get tough

13:19

on China. Why are we sending

13:21

them cheap gas to help out their own manufacturing sector?

13:23

Why don't we keep it at home and help out

13:25

our own? So I don't

13:28

know how much of this is an honest

13:31

argument or just trying to score political

13:33

points. But the beat has been increasing

13:35

to kind of bring the amount of

13:37

exports we're shipping to China into focus

13:39

and raise a question of, you know,

13:41

when is it too much? Tim, if

13:43

you'd love to hop in, let's talk some

13:45

about the political implications of this, especially

13:48

because it is an election year in

13:50

the United States. Will

13:52

this decision assuage some of these green

13:54

groups and climate change groups in the US? Because

13:57

it sounds like a lot of these groups, and

13:59

I know Ben, you've spoken with some

14:01

of them before, like the Sunrise Movement,

14:03

the Oil Change International, et cetera,

14:05

that they want Biden to block all

14:08

of this fossil fuel development

14:10

and mining and using public

14:12

lands for those kinds of

14:14

projects. Do you think

14:16

that this has made them feel better

14:19

about what President Biden is

14:21

doing on climate? Yeah, I think in

14:24

the context of the Willow decision we mentioned

14:26

earlier, I think for a lot of them,

14:28

this brings the balance back to zero. I

14:30

mean, it's funny, you ask them about the Inflation

14:32

Reduction Act and all this money for clean energy,

14:35

and that almost for a lot of folks, at

14:37

least on the ground, they either forgot about it

14:40

or never really recognized it. But

14:42

the Willow decision was like the big headline

14:44

for them. So I think this kind of

14:46

almost brings the ledger, the balance to zero.

14:48

There's an interesting debate of

14:51

how much this is registering with the

14:54

progressive and younger voters that the Biden

14:56

administration wants to get back into their

14:58

camp versus the war in

15:00

Israel. We hear that a lot of,

15:03

well, this would be great if you

15:05

could just take it on its own,

15:07

the LNG pause. But what's

15:09

going on in Gaza is kind of sucking

15:11

up all the oxygen. So

15:13

I think that's become a bigger issue.

15:16

The LNG thing is interesting in that

15:18

when you ask people, what do you think is

15:20

going to happen after this review? Do you think

15:22

the administration is going to come out and say,

15:24

okay, all of our calculations show that we need

15:26

to just basically not approve any more LNG

15:29

export projects ever? Or do you think it's going

15:31

to go back to business as usual? And

15:34

the politics is really interesting here where you

15:36

talk to some energy lobbyists and

15:38

they're scared to death that the

15:41

November, the Biden administration is going

15:43

to ban, actually will ban LNG

15:45

exports. Or if you talk to

15:48

the environmental groups, they'll say, I don't know, it's

15:50

probably just to go back to business. So they get

15:52

a little bit cynical. But yeah, it's still a little

15:54

bit TBD on, I

15:56

think, how powerful the politics of this

15:59

end up. And the timing of

16:01

this is also interesting too, because the

16:03

Deputy Energy Secretary David

16:05

Turk testified about this on

16:07

Capitol Hill, and he said

16:10

that this is probably going to take months, not

16:12

years, for this assessment and

16:14

this pause to

16:16

take place. So you're right that the pause could

16:18

end sometime in

16:20

November, sometime in October. I

16:23

mean, Zach, jump in on this. You

16:25

wrote a story about the White House climate

16:27

advisor, Ali Zaidi, talking

16:29

about this from the podium. He

16:32

was basically asked point blank if the Biden administration

16:34

made this decision to court these progressive voters.

16:37

He kind of didn't deny it. I think we've

16:39

got to be clear-eyed about the challenges

16:41

that we face. The climate crisis is

16:44

that, an existential crisis. And we've got

16:46

to be, I think, really

16:48

forward leaning into making sure that

16:50

we're taking that head on. No,

16:53

he didn't. And I don't think that

16:55

the Biden administration has been shy necessarily

16:57

about having a close relationship with some

16:59

environmental groups. I think to some extent

17:02

it's to their advantage to play that

17:04

up, particularly in terms of trying

17:08

to motivate youth turnout, especially

17:10

with the support that the bombardment

17:13

of Gaza may be casting them.

17:15

Yeah, I mean, I'd agree with

17:17

both Zach and Ben. It's a

17:19

very, very, very careful balance. And

17:21

you see that within the

17:23

administration, that there's kind of divisions

17:25

within the administration. There's the folks

17:27

like Ali Zaidi, who have John

17:30

Podesta, who have climate in their

17:32

portfolios. And then there's like

17:34

energy security people who are conscious

17:36

that the US

17:39

supplied Europe when it needed

17:41

with natural gas, LNG, right

17:44

after Russia invaded Ukraine.

17:47

An EU official came to Washington

17:50

just a few weeks ago, Morris

17:52

Cefovic. And he said it's

17:54

not a problem in the short term or the

17:57

medium term for Europe. But He

17:59

used this interesting. Term for what

18:01

he considers the Us as

18:03

the global guarantor of energy

18:06

security. Then. He says he

18:08

went on to mention of Asia,

18:10

Latin America, and Africa and like

18:12

if the Us doesn't supply them

18:15

and they will turn to call.

18:17

So that's another you know thing

18:19

that they're balanced. And of course

18:21

we're learning more about whether Lng

18:23

is the dirtier than call. I

18:25

mean there's a debate their that's

18:27

something that I wanted to bring

18:30

up to his is this alternative

18:32

of using Lng as part of

18:34

the green energy transition. And.

18:37

Weather. Is this could

18:39

potentially slow down moving

18:42

to. Greener. Energy

18:44

sources in the future and that

18:46

is something not abide Administration has hammered

18:49

on and moving away from coal. moving

18:51

away from oil is is potentially going

18:53

to affect that transition. I think that's

18:56

one of the things that a review

18:58

during the pauses post the answer.

19:00

I mean I talked to a never

19:02

people who are saying well look, we're

19:05

finally getting widespread use of like real

19:07

time measurements from methane emissions and we

19:09

didn't have before But you're into the

19:12

past. It was companies, the kind

19:14

of. Use a calculation to say how

19:16

much methane is your leaking from their

19:18

works in now we can actually see

19:20

it is a various means if they

19:22

want to incorporate this into there are

19:24

voting process that the deo he does

19:27

add what are things were saying as

19:29

well as the or every group in

19:31

it's grandma's racing to the White house

19:33

with it's own it's methodology of how

19:35

you measure methane from these projects and

19:37

preventing out which one of these methods

19:40

that the feel we use his they

19:42

could say well look you know this.

19:44

Metric ton of L a g produced in

19:46

the Permian basin. you know cause this amount

19:48

of methane emissions than you get it on

19:51

the ship. This is descended across the atlantic

19:53

and that's got it's own but they the

19:55

missions side to it he had so you

19:57

know we can actually see is cleaner than

19:59

coal. if you're sending this LNG

20:01

to Poland, and if Poland can

20:03

grab coal from someplace close, what's

20:05

the difference in the methane emissions?

20:08

So I think this pause is

20:10

partly to see, can

20:12

we incorporate these new measurements into

20:14

our review? Yeah, that export process

20:17

that you're describing, it causes pollution.

20:19

If the United States is exporting

20:21

this from, let's say Louisiana, where

20:23

some of these projects are under

20:26

consideration, all the

20:28

way to somewhere in Eastern Europe,

20:30

it takes a long time to get it there. Tim,

20:33

what do you think? Yeah, and

20:35

you mentioned David Turk, the Deputy

20:37

Energy Secretary, and whether he testified

20:40

in the Senate about

20:42

it. And I think at one point

20:44

he mentioned that Japan has its beginning

20:46

to bring back its nuclear power plants.

20:49

And he also mentioned to reporters

20:51

after the event that

20:53

when they talk with allies and partners,

20:56

they see in many cases

20:58

that demand for gas is going down

21:00

in those economies. But Japan,

21:02

it took down

21:04

dozens of nuclear power plants after

21:06

Fukushima in 2011, and

21:09

it's uncertain how many of those are coming

21:11

back, like the biggest nuclear power plant in

21:14

the world is in

21:16

Japan, and it just got some initial

21:18

approval to go forward, but

21:20

it's still having problems within its

21:22

local jurisdictions. So a

21:25

lot will depend whether this

21:27

pause pushes Japan to turn

21:29

back on its nukes or not. And

21:31

then of course the coal question. Ben,

21:33

I had one final question too that

21:35

I wanted to ask you because you

21:37

have been talking to some of these

21:39

communities on the ground. The

21:41

projects that are currently on pause

21:44

from what I've read are projects

21:46

being considered in Louisiana, and there

21:48

are environmentalists who you

21:51

spoke with about this.

21:53

Why are they

21:55

cheering on this decision from the

21:57

Biden administration to pause these LNG? Utensil

22:00

export locations. what do they see as the

22:02

impact on their actual communities? To tell you

22:05

all about the flaring up gas that goes

22:07

on, a lot of these Lnc companies will

22:09

say you know where that you're one of

22:12

the cleanest forms of energy around. but clean

22:14

as doesn't mean hundred percent clean as he

22:16

go to some of these facilities. Me

22:18

that they're pretty big and they'll flair the

22:20

gas that they can't be used you. It's

22:23

in some extreme cases like without Freeport Lng

22:25

in taxes. you know, the plant which is

22:27

relatively new. Me that it it was one.

22:30

Of the first Lng export plants around

22:32

without feel Twenty sixteen, Twenty seventeen the

22:34

head of in Explosion two years ago.

22:36

these are industrial plants that have their

22:38

own emissions. It's a toss it is

22:40

people on the ground and I'll tell

22:43

you you know our respiratory health is

22:45

suffering because of these. There you know,

22:47

eating up more and more of our

22:49

wetlands years. It's the construction goes on.

22:51

So they're concerned about the health and

22:53

environmental reasons and they're basically saying there's

22:56

been a unmitigated rushed to build these.

22:58

we need to stop building as. Best

23:00

we can and think about the consequences

23:02

of these facilities are gonna last decades.

23:04

Thank you for adding that. I think

23:06

that's important for everyone to keep in

23:08

mind To you know when we think

23:10

about a policy ideas. Sentiment. This is

23:13

then it. Really informative. I've learned

23:15

a lot. Thanks for listening. To our

23:17

Special Energy Series where we explore the world.

23:19

Energy sources and the politics. And powers

23:21

behind. The clean transition for dropped

23:24

new episode here every month I'm

23:26

Was Landers. See you next time.