Source: The big battle brewing over LNG exports | Canary Media
The Biden admin has presided over a vast buildout of liquefied natural gas infrastructure that threatens its climate goals. Here’s what could happen next.
Nicole Pollack is an Ohio-based environmental journalist who writes about energy, agriculture and climate change. She covers the politics and climate consequences of the U.S. LNG buildout for Canary Media.
The Biden administration unveiled one of its most significant actions to address climate change last month at the COP28 U.N. climate conference in the United Arab Emirates: new regulations aimed at curtailing methane leaks from oil and gas operations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the rules will prevent 58 million tons of methane — a potent greenhouse gas whose near-term warming power is many times that of carbon dioxide — from escaping wells, pipelines and other industrial equipment between 2024 and 2038. That’s the equivalent of 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide — almost as much climate pollution as the entire U.S. power sector emitted in 2021.
But while American officials trumpeted the move on the global stage at COP, back home in the U.S. climate activists were ramping up campaigns calling on the Biden administration to halt a trend that could result in huge new streams of methane pollution.
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