The administration still has discretion in its review of new projects, and experts don’t expect it to approve any ahead of the November election, in which President Biden looks to face a closely fought rematch with former President Trump.
Approving new gas export facilities would likely alienate progressive voters who already have a tenuous relationship with Biden and have raised concerns about gas’s environmental impact.
“I don’t think it’ll have much impact at all,” Ira Joseph, senior research associate at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said of the order lifting the administration’s pause.
Joseph added that the Energy Department “has the ability to review the license for non-[free trade agreement] approval for as long or as short as they want.”
The Biden administration said in January that it would temporarily stop authorizing gas export terminals to ship fuel to countries that don’t have free trade agreements with the U.S., otherwise known as non-FTA countries.
Opponents of the move sued, and Judge James Cain, a Trump appointee, earlier this week blocked the administration’s pause “in its entirety, effective immediately” while the litigation against it plays out.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
