Republican Gov. Jeff Landry scored a final success going out the door as Louisiana’s attorney general, but an even greater challenge from climate craziness has reared its ugly head.
Landry proved a reliable champion against climate alarmism in his two terms as attorney general, which mainly featured battles against the overreach of Democrat Pres. Joe Biden. Usually, these incidents affected the state as part of the broad collective of states and not directly targeted at Louisiana. Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards also is a climate alarmist, but he couldn’t do much to spread the infection into state government with little support from the Legislature and Public Service Commission, and what little he could do Landry already has started to reverse.
However, a recent Biden Administration action that ultimately could threaten national security delivered direct punch at Louisiana. Last week, the Department of Energy said it wouldn’t approve indefinitely permits for liquified natural gas exportation to countries not part of free trade agreements with the U.S., pending a review of factors that go into that decision-making. The guidance is five years old and, according to Biden, doesn’t take into account the alleged “climate crisis” built upon weak-to-nonexistent confirmatory data.
In effect, Biden pulled out another example of shadow banning in the area of fossil fuel collection and consumption. This is a behavioral pattern where the political left trots out a supposed explanation of government regulatory action – in this case, asserted obsolescent decision procedures and rules – to mask a more sinister agenda, in this case to achieve the twin goals of stifling fossil fuel production and achieving greater government control over economic production.
Landry and Louisiana, with other states, just beat back another such attempt. Earlier this month, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the Biden Administration’s try at repealing DOE rules that circumscribed unnecessary standards for dishwasher energy and water use. Requiring more efficient energy use for these appliances would spike the price of such units and likely use more resources, since the more efficient units too often do incomplete jobs that consumers would have to compensate for such as running loads again.
But the recent DOE decision contains a direct attack on Louisiana, because it came in the context of refusing to issue a permit to support the building, whether new or expansion, of capacity at sites in the state. One Louisiana site, Commonwealth LNG, had been waiting 14 months for approval, and another waits at the same stage. This is the culmination of a deliberate slowdown of permitting both by DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in response to climate alarmist pressure levied at the COP 28 conference last year as well by hipster social media influencers.
Worse, the 20 countries that have unfettered access to U.S. LNG exports don’t include any of those most under pressure now for access to reasonably-priced and available energy, Europe and around it who buy the majority of U.S. exported LNG. They face geopolitical stress from the war in Ukraine featuring their former largest LNG exporter, Russia, whose exports they have eschewed to pressure it to give up its military invasion of Ukraine.
In a reckless display of disregard for the truth and national security, climate alarmists allege the blockade will have little impact on shipments to Europe. In fact, the expansions were in response largely to sate forecasted European demand; for example, the Venture Global CP2 proposed plant, caught up waiting on slow-walking FERC review which whenever it happens now will be stymied from selling to Europe by the DOE suspension, already has committed a third of this unbuilt capacity to Germany over the next 20 years. As challenges to America’s democratic allies multiply from Russia as well as from some Middle Eastern states and Red China over the coming years, their national security and America’s will come under increasing threat by delaying energy independence gained from increased export capacity.
Closer to home, this could turn out to be devastating to Louisiana’s economic recovery from the Edwards years that saw population sag over 100,000 people and more recently had recorded contractions in jobs for the past six months. Louisiana produces 63 percent of the countries LNG exports, has three of the eight largest export terminals (CP2 is set to become the world’s largest), and produce billions of dollars in economic activity (and that was old data which by now is probably twice or more in size) that translates into hundreds of millions of tax dollars placed into the coffers of state and local governments.
To fight this, once again Landry, partnering with new attorney general Republican Liz Murrill, may have to go to court. The Natural Gas Act of 1938 requires the assumption that any non-FTA application is the public interest, subject to a review of that. That gives no direct authority for DOE to stop the process, as it may reevaluate the standards it uses simultaneously with making decisions, and the fact the reviews have ballooned out in length not only to slow approvals but also to dig up some way of torpedoing projects by finding a contrary public interest is something a court may find violates the law.
Let’s just hope Landry’s record of action against climate craziness, with a high proportion of victories, comes to fruition on this occasion.
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