As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January, the outgoing Biden-Harris Administration is already taking steps to undermine his agenda when it comes to energy policy.
According to the Daily Caller, multiple agencies are already working to block any potential future approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and expanded drilling for oil and gas on American soil. The incumbent administration had already halted all LNG export approvals in January, as part of its long fight against fossil fuels in the name of stopping so-called “global warming.”
When the Biden-Harris Department of Energy (DOE) first blocked LNG exports, the justification was that the agency needed to carry out a new study to determine the environmental impact of such drilling and production. Outgoing Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in May that this new report might not be released until 2025. As a result of Harris’ crushing loss to President Trump in the Tuesday election, the DOE is now rushing to complete the report by the end of November.
Such a report could subsequently be used by far-left activist groups to challenge the Trump Administration in court if it tries to approve new deals anyway. President Trump has vowed to simply ignore such reports and approve new export and drilling permits anyway.
In addition to increased LNG exports, President Trump also hopes to return to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which was originally approved by his 2017 tax reform law. Although the Biden-Harris Administration largely paused any further drilling in ANWR, they were legally required by the provisions of the bill to approve a second sale by the end of 2024; on Wednesday, officials suggested that the sale will only include the bare minimum of 400,000 acres.
“The 2017 Tax Act requires a second lease sale and we are following the law as we always pledged we would,” said a spokesman for the Department of the Interior (DOI).
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