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A U.S. district judge on Monday blocked the Biden administration’s ban on approving applications to export liquefied natural gas, ordering the LNG export ban “be stayed in its entirety, effective immediately.”
A coalition of 16 Republican-led states, including Texas and Louisiana, had filed suit in March, arguing the Biden administration lacked the authority to broadly deny the permits.
The administration had said the pause was intended to allow the U.S. Department of Energy and other officials to review the process for analyzing economic and environmental impacts of projects seeking approval to export LNG.
The states said the pause on new approvals for LNG exports overstepped the DoE’s authority under the Natural Gas Act, which they said must show projects are inconsistent with the public interest before denying applications.
The pause has raised uncertainty on the status of LNG export projects that have yet to obtain licenses, including Venture Global’s proposed CP2 project in Louisiana that last week cleared a key part of the federal permitting process.
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