Chicago – July 02, 2024
A federal judge on Monday dealt President Joe Biden’s climate agenda a setback by blocking the Democrat’s administration from continuing to pause the approval of applications to export liquefied natural gas (LNG).
U.S. District Judge James Cain in Lake Charles, Louisiana, sided with 16 Republican-led states in holding that the U.S. Department of Energy’s freeze on approvals of LNG exports was “completely without reason or logic.”
Cain, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, said the states were likely to succeed in showing the pause contravened the Natural Gas Act and was arbitrary, capricious, and unconstitutional.
Cain said the department’s actions were “above and beyond its scope of authority.” He said he had “reviewed the voluminous studies attached as exhibits, all of which boast of both the economic and environmental benefits of exporting natural gas.”
