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A U.S. district judge on Monday blocked the Biden administration’s ban on approving applications to export liquefied natural gas, ordering that the LNG export ban “be suspended in its entirety, effective immediately.”
A coalition of 16 Republican-led states, including Texas and Louisiana, had filed a lawsuit in March, arguing that the Biden administration lacked the authority to broadly deny permits.
The administration had said the pause was intended to allow the U.S. Department of Energy and other officials to review the process of analyzing the economic and environmental impacts of projects seeking approval to export LNG.
The states said the pause on new approvals for LNG exports exceeded the Department of Energy’s authority under the Natural Gas Act, which they said must show that projects are inconsistent with the public interest before denying applications.
The pause has raised uncertainty about the status of LNG export projects that have yet to be licensed, including Venture Global’s proposed CP2 project in Louisiana, which last week approved a key part of the federal permitting process.
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