Just one month before ceding the White House to Donald Trump, the Biden administration has released a long-awaited analysis of the impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The study—a watershed moment for environmental advocates who have long demanded it—offers a sobering assessment of the effect future exports will have on everything from climate change and frontline communities to renewable sources of energy around the world. 

The study’s creation was announced last January after Biden hit pause on any new approvals of LNG export permits for non–free trade agreement countries. That action put the brakes on would-be LNG terminals like CP2 in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, which environmental advocates have called “the next carbon bomb.” The secretary of energy was tasked with evaluating how LNG export permits might impact consumers, workers, and the environment. 

The Department of Energy’s report warns that a global glut of LNG exports is so massive that it is already set to quickly outpace global demand. The “truly astounding” pace of LNG export expansion began when the United States started exporting gas for the first time in 2016. Today, the US is the world’s leading exporter of LNG. The report found that “the amounts that have already been approved will be more than sufficient to meet global demand for US LNG for decades to come.”

At the same time, domestic consumers are set to face higher prices as a result of these increased exports. “Unfettered” exports would increase domestic gas prices by over 30 percent, affecting homes, farmers, and industry alike. In the South, home to most of the LNG terminals, this increase would put some households over the energy burden threshold, “challenging their ability to meet basic needs.” The affordability of air conditioning is already becoming a life or death matter for many Southerners—particularly the elderly and disabled. 

The report leaves out the fact that Black neighborhoods disproportionately experience the burden of these increased energy costs—86 percent of the Louisiana households suffering high energy burdens are in majority Black neighborhoods.

As the price of gas creeps up, it also raises the price of electricity and manufacturing costs, which in turn will drive inflation. Even business-friendly politicians might glance twice at the study’s well-cited conclusion that between 2020 and 2050, energy costs for the industrial sector will go up by $125 billion.

The study also affirms what frontline communities have long been saying about LNG’s effects on communities and climate. It notes the disproportionate pollution burdens borne by the Louisiana and Texas communities where these terminals are built, and that the resulting air pollutants “lead to higher mortality rates,” also detailing LNG’s wide-ranging impacts on everything from traffic to crime rates.

Perhaps the most significant conclusion of the report, however, is that future LNG exports will displace more renewable sources of energy than coal. That puts a damper on industry’s favored argument that LNG is a “bridge fuel” crucial to drawing down developing countries’ reliance on coal. Instead, the study finds that LNG increases emissions even when they make some “very aggressive assumptions” regarding the use of carbon capture technology, which as of today remains largely unproven to be effective at scale. A terminal that produces 4bn cubic feet per day—like CP2—creates more greenhouse gas emissions than 141 countries each produced in 2023. 

In the face of these predictions, Granholm urges that “accounting for the greenhouse gas intensity of LNG cargoes should be a central consideration for future operations” of LNG domestically and globally. That stops short of calling for an end to LNG exports and reads a bit more like an ask for tighter regulation and leak monitoring. Notably, the study doesn’t reference Robert Howarth’s recent study that concluded LNG exports are more emission-intensive than coal.

What impact might this have on Trump’s trade plans for LNG?

Market trends already underway could hold an answer. European demand for gas has flattened, falling by 20 percent in the first half of 2024, and is “set to decline substantially.” Demand has already peaked in Japan. It’s set to flatten in South Korea too. China, however, is the world’s largest importer, and its LNG imports are expected to double between now and 2030. The US LNG industry relies on that demand: Plaquemines LNG, which just began production this month, and the aspiring CP2, have 20-year contracts with China Gas. The US already bans LNG exports to countries it deems hostile, including Cuba and Iran, but China is a major LNG player. This all puts Trump’s LNG plans somewhat at odds with his plans for trade with China.

Trump has indicated he’ll usher through LNG expansion on day one. But the new DOE report provides ample arguments for the inevitable legal challenges any such expansion push will face. It could also undergird efforts in other countries to reject US LNG import agreements.

Grahholm concludes in the report that “the question is not whether US export policy will be forced to respond to those interests but when and what the response is.”

The comment period for the study won’t close until the Trump administration takes over. That means that despite these powerful conclusions, the Biden administration is deferring any immediate, meaningful action as “decisions about the future of LNG export levels will necessarily be made by future administrations.”

Still, the talk of oversupply “makes me optimistic,” John Allaire, a Cameron resident whose property is adjacent to the Calcasieu Pass export terminal, told Sierra in response to the new study. “You look at all the ones [LNG terminals] that are under construction right now—how much is going to be enough?” 

Others called for Biden’s DOE to go further while there’s still time. “This study mirrors the Biden administration’s entire four-year approach to advancing a clean energy future: weak and half-hearted,” said Jim Walsh, policy director for Food & Water Watch. “President Biden must listen to the warnings of his own government by banning further LNG exports and rejecting pending LNG permits before he leaves office.”