The Biden thumbs-down on LNG exports: more hatred of human advancement

 I hope that you're aware of this development:

The White House is halting the permitting process for several proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects over their potential impacts on climate change, an unprecedented move environmentalists have demanded in recent months.

In a joint announcement Friday morning, the White House and Department of Energy (DOE) said the pause would occur while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects’ carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete. Climate activists have loudly taken aim at LNG export projects in recent weeks, arguing they will lead to a large uptick in emissions and worsen global warming.

“As our exports increase, we must review export applications using the most comprehensive up-to-date analysis of the economic, environmental and national security considerations,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters on a press call. “This action includes a pause on pending applications for exports of U.S. natural gas as LNG to non-free trade agreement countries until the department can update the underlying analyses for authorizations.”

Is there any doubt who has had the administration's ear on this subject?

LNG export terminals have been opposed by Democrats and environmentalists who argue they would create harmful pollution and contribute to global warming. The issue has led to activists posting videos on social media which, over the last two months, have generated tens of millions of views.

Additionally, in December, dozens of environmental groups wrote to Granholm, imploring her to reject the LNG development “for the sake of our climate and communities.” Days later, 170 scientists penned a letter to President Biden, asking him to reject pending LNG facilities.

Here's another viewpoint, one based less on hysterics and preening, and more on an understanding of LNG's comparative advantages:

Natural gas is an incredibly versatile fuel--providing low-cost, clean residential heating; low-cost, clean "industrial process heat"; and low-cost, highly controllable and reliable clean electricity.

While natural gas used to be so hard to get that the US imported it, thanks to fracking and other shale energy technologies, the US now has a virtually limitless supply of low-cost, reliable, versatile, clean natural gas.¹

Between 2008 and 2018 fracking natural gas added 17 times more energy to the US than all solar panels and wind turbines combined. And that’s 100% reliable energy, unlike the unreliable energy from solar and wind that needs constant backup from...fracked natural gas.²

One of the best things American energy producers can do with our endless natural gas supplies is to export natural gas to places that need it. There are 800 million people who have no electricity and the 2.6 billion people still using wood or dung for heating and cooking.³

The key to exporting natural gas is LNG--liquefied natural gas. By cooling natural gas to very low temperatures, we can turn it into a liquid that can be easily and cost-effectively transported nearly anywhere in the world.

The world wants US natural gas and American companies want to build the LNG facilities to get it to them. But our government is strangling progress with an onerous and irrational permitting process.

LNG export facilities are burdened not only by standard, onerous state and federal permitting requirements in need of reform, but also requiring additional approval by the Department of Energy--which can take years.

Fortunately, there is proposed legislation that would expedite permitting for LNG exports: the “Natural Gas Export Expansion Act,” introduced by @AugustPfluger, which would allow expedited LNG approval for any country except those determined to be national security threats.⁴

There is no good reason for opposing expedited permitting of LNG. Those who complain about LNG's emissions ignore the fact that if we don't export LNG, it will be substituted for by higher-emissions Russian LNG or by coal.⁵

And our trading partners are going to find some LNG to import anyway - or substitute coal for it:

Countries that would have purchased U.S. LNG can substitute LNG from other countries. Mother Earth doesn’t really care which country it comes from.

Countries that aren’t able to substitute LNG from elsewhere are likely to use coal instead. Coal burns dirtier than LNG. The largest single reason for the decline in U.S. carbon emissions in the past several years is the switch from coal to natural gas for electricity generation. Making LNG exports more difficult hinders the ability of other countries to make that switch.

As has been proven with such developments as "gender-affirming" mutilation of thirteen year olds and an electeds-of-color holiday party hosted by the mayor of a major post-American city, progressivism doesn't need a majority of the population to impose its corrosion on the rest of us.

Climate alarmism brings together an older element of the leftist impulse - class-based antipathy toward organizations formed for industrial purposes (see California Governor Gavin Newsom's accusation that "big oil" is gouging prices and lying about the effects of its products), and the profits resulting from their activity - with more modern features of that impulse: a deification of the ball of dirt and water we inhabit, and an "intersectional" lumping together of its adversarial stance toward normal-people energy forms with its paradoxical portrayal of the female half of the human species: portraying them simultaneously as helpless and particularly vulnerable, and powerful and assertive in the same way a man is. 

The entire vision is mad. It's also collectivist in the extreme. It allows its architects to supposedly justify the sinking of government's teeth into every realm of human activity.

Would that we had some kind of coherent and viable political counterforce that could mitigate this onslaught. That's not in the offing at present.