January 26, 2023

Today, President Biden announced a ban on new action to permit U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports abroad - all in the name of fighting climate change. It does nothing of the sort. It will only kill American jobs while funding Vladimir Putin’s war against the West.

• The U.S. LNG industry is projected to support between 220,000 and 452,000 additional U.S. jobs by 2040, adding between $50-73 billion to the American economy. 
• President Biden’s prior pledge to supply our European allies with LNG would have supported 71,500 jobs and boosted our GDP by $46 billion. This policy undermines this growth and will kill thousands of jobs.
• As 25 U.S. Senators noted in a letter to President Biden, limiting U.S. LNG exports doesn’t impact the world’s demand – it just shifts the supply to countries like Russia and Iran with less stringent environmental standards.
• In the past two years, European Union imports of Russian LNG have increased nearly 40%, rising from 9.97 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2021 to 14 bcm in 2023.
• Exports of Russian LNG help fuel Putin’s war machine, bringing in an estimated $21 billion in 2022. About half of Russian LNG exports are to European nations. 
• Time and again, Biden pays lip service about applying pressure on Russia, while helping fund and funnel huge sums of money to Russia – through Iran, through lax sanctions enforcement, and now through this self-sabotaging energy policy.
• In 2023, the U.S. exported 86 million tons of LNG, and in December 2023, U.S. LNG exports reached an all-time high of 8.6 million tons per month. Over the next decade, the U.S. industry had slated $290 billion for new LNG investments aimed at expanding capacity by 70 percent. 

This announcement follows a disturbing trend in Biden foreign and domestic policy: a war against American energy, but concessions to all our enemies seeking to export their own energy.

Timeline of Biden Concessions on Energy Policy:

January 2021 - On his first day in office, Biden canceled the Keystone Pipeline and halted new federal drilling, which resulted in a weakened U.S. energy sector, contributed to soaring oil prices, and led to an estimated loss of 11,000 American jobs.

January 2021-May 2022: As part of Biden’s efforts to return to the 2015 Iran Deal, the Biden Administration ceases all enforcement of Iranian oil exports, failing to sanction a single entity or individual exporting Iranian crude oil. Over the past three years, Iran has been able to export $80 billion EXTRA compared to the levels during Maximum Pressure.

January 2022 - When Senate Republicans advanced legislation to sanction Nord Stream 2 as a last ditch effort to prevent Putin’s invasion in Ukraine, Biden successfully lobbied almost every Senate Democrat to filibuster this sanctions legislation, preserving Russia’s energy backdoor into Europe.

June 2022 – After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden Administration released generous sanctions waivers allowing the export of Russian oil through Russian banks. Since Putin’s invasion, the Treasury Department has routinely renewed licenses and reassuring global markets they can purchase and transport Russian oil.

August 2023 - Officials in the Biden administration told Bloomberg that they were covertly allowed Iran to export oil to China without imposing sanctions, deliberately turning a blind eye in hopes Iran would slow its enrichment of uranium.

October 2023 - Biden administration removed sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and energy sector, throwing away the most significant leverage against the Maduro regime that had been painstakingly built during the Trump Administration.

Biden has bent over backwards to help global dictators become richer, at the expense of hard-working Americans. The question remains: would you rather we supply our allies with U.S. LNG or should we make them buy it from dictators?