A Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits on Monday, handing a victory to a coalition of more than a dozen states that challenged the ban.
Judge James Cain served the preliminary injunction after 16 Republican states requested a stay on the grounds that the climate initiative will harm their economies. In January, the Department of Energy paused all new approvals of LNG exports to non-Free Trade Agreement countries in order to assess the impact of new LNG projects on carbon emissions. Cain ruled that federal officials failed to justify why it needed to conduct the environmental review, which is expected to last through early next year.
“Here, it appears that the DOE has failed to provide a more detailed justification for its halt of the approval process to conduct an update, especially considering that past precedent, which the applicants relied upon, allowed the approval of the applications to proceed when updates were made,” the federal judge wrote.
The federal government’s decision to halt LNG approvals was “completely without reason or logic and is perhaps the epiphany of ideocracy,” he continued.
Both the White House and Department of Energy issued statements in opposition to the ruling.
“We remain committed to informing our decisions with the best available economic and environmental analysis, underpinned by sound science,” a White House spokesperson said, adding that the administration was “disappointed” with the injunction. “The United States remains the world’s largest exporter of LNG, and is currently on track to more than double existing capacity by the end of this decade.”
A Department of Energy spokesperson said it “disagrees” with Monday’s ruling, adding it will continue reviewing the court order and evaluate its next steps.
Meanwhile, opponents of the pause praised the ruling for dealing a major blow to the Biden administration’s climate agenda.
“This is a big win for the country’s energy industry and the millions of jobs it supports against the attacks from the Biden administration to further its radical climate change agenda at the expense of our economy,” said West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey, one of the state attorney generals leading the challenge.
“This administration’s Energy Department has no such authority to justify this ban – authority on matters like this lies with Congress and Congress alone,” he added.
West Virginia was one of 22 states that called for an end to the LNG export pause in February, arguing that jobs and tax revenue created by natural gas production in their states would have been threatened.
Cain agreed, writing that the Department of Energy failed to consider the multistate coalition’s concerns about the LNG export ban’s “impact on national security, state revenues, employment opportunities, funding for schools and charities, and pollution allegedly caused by increased reliance on foreign energy sources.”