Reframing the LNG Debate We're focusing too much on the details, and not enough on the big picture.
The normal approval process is for permits to first go to the FERC and then to the DOE for final signoff to export to countries with which the U.S. has no free-trade agreement.
Reframing the LNG Debate
We're focusing too much on the details, and not enough on the big picture.
JAN 30
Meet Dan Campbell.
Dan is the head coach of the Detroit Lions. As the person ultimately in charge, he’s taking the brunt of the blame for his team’s loss in the NFC Championship to the San Francisco 49ers.
His aggressive play calling, arguably what got them into the game in the first place, is being debated my Monday morning quarterbacks the world over. Understandably so. If you’re even a passing football fan, how could you not debate decisions that cost the Lions a first-ever trip to the Super Bowl!? Don’t worry, the man is in a high profile job and makes $4mm per year — criticism comes with the territory.
Now humor us for a second. Imagine that, instead of his assistant coaches being the ones chirping into his coaching headset, it was a retired British lady.
In that hypothetical, what would’ve been the reaction after the game? We’d spend 99.9% of our time discussing the old lady and 0.01% on the actual play calling decisions.
Why would he listen to someone that clearly has no idea what they’re talking about?
Wouldn’t it be insane if we only spent a limited amount of time discussing the old lady
?
Well, this is the situation we find ourselves in as it relates to liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. Last week, the Biden administration pausedapproval of 17 LNG export terminals. It’s a move that shows just how unserious our leaders are when it comes to energy.
The vast majority of the commentary we’ve seen on this issue is about the decision itself. Will stopping new LNG export projects really reduce emissions? How do LNG lifecycle emissions compare to coal? How will this impact domestic gas prices? Did Europe need this gas anyways? How does this impact developing countries? Sure, these are fun and important questions to debate… but they miss the point.
We should be reviewing and debating how the decision was made.
The normal approval process is for permits to first go to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and then to the Department of Energy (DOE) for final signoff to export to countries with which the U.S. has no free-trade agreement. As part of their approval process, the DOE is tasked with determining whether or not the project in question is in the “public interest.” However, since LNG export began in 2012, the DOE has been rubber-stamping its approvals. The DOE has never rejected a permit on these grounds, especially since three studiescommissioned by the DOE have consistently shown that LNG exports benefit the public.
“Public interest” is obviously a vague term that can be weaponized to mean whatever you want it to mean. So, environmental activists did just that and pressured the Biden Administration to explicitly consider how LNG exports impact climate change. They are the old British lady in this situation. The activists astutely realized that they hold a tremendous amount of political leverage in an election year. Biden made the decision that he couldn’t afford to lose the climate mafia’s political support and capitulated to their demands.
So in reality, this decision has zero to do with the public interest, and everything to do with Biden’s reelection interest. His administration is trying to temporarily win favor with climate-crazy voters.
We honestly don’t think the response to the announcement could’ve gone any better for Biden. The response was… chaos. Everyone and their mother dove into the details. Somehow an obviously stupid, obviously political decision is being viewed as nuanced and complex.
Taking a step back, we must admit that this is an impressive win for the climate mafia. Climate activists aren’t dumb. Rather, they hold incredibly dumb ideas in incredibly smart brains.
If you don’t take environmental crazies seriously, you’ll seriously underestimate their ability to influence people. At the end of the day, they’re advocating for what they believe to be “right.” We’re playing the same game. Losing is the worst, but you have to respect what it takes to win.
The win is all the more impressive considering the turnaround from a year ago. Last year, climate activists were irate over Biden's approval of the Willow oil project in Alaska. After taking that defeat, they quickly recovered and focused their collective attention on stopping Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) LNG export terminal. Read this X thread to get a flavor of the advocacy that ensued. This wasn’t a bunch of children whining and complaining until Biden listened. This was intelligent and coordinated activism. If you don’t respect your enemy, you’ll never defeat them.
In saying this was only about Biden’s relection interest and not the pubic interest, we’re not trying to be naive. Of course it was — we’re realists. This is an election year. Politics is a dirty game. With a ballooning minefield of regulatory agencies and red tape, the political battlefield is only growing.
In a way, this is the point of politics. Our democratically elected leaders should be listening to their constituents for fear of being voted out of office. However, our question is why do any politicians feel the need to listen to climate extremists?
Climate activists have consistently won mindshare amongst the general public and politicians alike because they are the ones that frame debates. They focus on a singular issue with a clear moral north star. They didn’t talk generally about fossil fuels or the environment. They focused on the issue of the CP2 LNG export permit with the north star of zero carbon emissions. When the issue is framed in this manner, it’s nearly impossible to argue against the pause. It frames LNG as, at best, a temporary necessary evil and forces you into an unwinnable discussion about lifecycle emissions, global natural gas demand, and random weather events. It’s a fool’s errand of a debate.
When we debate this issue, we focus on reframing the debate around energy access.
Expanding access to affordable and reliable energy is the most critical ingredient to increasing human prosperity and environmental quality around the world.
This framing makes it so that any decision that limits access to energy is immediately met with skepticism — a 180 degree turn from the current framing where any expansion of energy is immediately met with skepticism. When you own the framing, especially the moral framing, it’s so much easier to win debates.
So in summary, our takeaways from the LNG pause are that we should:
Focus more of our attention on how the decision was made and less on the merits of the decision itself.
Respect the climate mafia and reflect on why it has so much influence.
Study how to reframe the debate because arguing about the details ain’t cuttin’ it.
All of this being said…. we’re still pretty sad about the pause tbh