To Counter Russia, Biden Is Helping America’s Oil and Gas Industry Sell More Fuel

Environmental groups are livid.

Joe Biden at a press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Friday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to be helping the American natural gas industry. President Joe Biden and the European Commission on Friday announced a plan for the United States to ship 50 billion cubic meters of liquified natural gas to Europe annually through at least 2030, more than double current shipments, in what Biden billed as a bid to wean Europe off Russian energy.

The move comes amid steps by policy makers in Washington to loosen natural gas regulations. Those include a decision Thursday by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, amid congressional pressure, to roll back a policy that would assess the climate effects of existing natural gas pipelines.

These steps are part of an apparent retreat by Democrats and the Biden administration from the president’s campaign promises to transition away from fossil fuel. That shift is driven by circumstances—Russia’s attack on Ukraine and congressional hostility to his climate proposals—but is nonetheless deeply disappointing environmental to advocates.

The recalibration has reportedly drawn opposition from some within the White House, who object to boosting LNG exports to Europe. And Biden tried to downplay environmental concerns Friday. “This build-out—this build-out will occur in a way that consists—is consistent with, not in conflict with, the zero—net-zero climate goal we—that we’re shooting for,” he said, without explaining.

Gas prices were already soaring. And the stock of US gas companies rose after Biden’s announcement. The US cannot easily increase LNG exports to Europe. Amid high prices, US export facilities are already operating at close to full capacity. But the deal announced Friday was an indication to the oil and gas industry that it will receive support from the once-hostile White House. That is likely to encourage investment in new drilling and infrastructure, including expanded LNG facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported. The joint announcement Friday “sent a powerful signal to the market,” Mike Sabel, chief executive of Venture Global LNG, which runs a new LNG facility in Louisiana, told the paper.

A similar process is expected in Europe. The European Commission pledged to expand facilities to receive LNG shipments. Liquified gas, which must be converted back to gas after shipping, requires different infrastructure to process it than the pipeline-shipped gas European states have relied on from Russia. (Nordstream 2, a heavily-lobbied, planned Russia-to-Germany pipeline, would have left Germany more reliant on Russian supplies, but the Germans shelved the project after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.)

Environmental groups blasted the administration’s plan for the same reason that oil and gas companies celebrated it. “President Biden campaigned on bold and ambitious goals to tackle the climate crisis and environmental injustice,” Kelly Sheehan, the Sierra Club’s director of energy campaigns, told Bloomberg. “Supporting the push to expand gas exports and lock in decades of fossil fuel production is directly in conflict with these goals.” 

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate