If Kamala Were Committed To Energy, She’d End LNG Export Ban

Kamala Harris is running for president as a “change” candidate despite her status in the incumbent administration. That means if Harris were genuine about her commitment to a flourishing American energy industry, she would lobby to lift the White House moratorium on new liquified natural gas (LNG) export projects.

In January, President Joe Biden followed an illegal 18-month suspension on oil and gas leases on public lands with a freeze on new licenses to export American LNG. A federal judge blocked the ban this summer but, as The Wall Street Journal reports, “the climate lobby is telling the Administration to ignore the court as it did the law.”

“Who cares what a court says? Not the Sierra Club, which says the judge’s ruling doesn’t compel the Administration ‘to issue any specific decisions,’” the Journal’s editorial board reported. “In other words, the Administration can continue to slow-walk reviews, as it has been doing.”

The Biden administration has a history of ignoring court conclusions after all, considering oil and gas sales on public lands did not resume until June 2022, a full year after a judge ruled the moratorium on new leases violated federal law. In August, Biden’s Department of Energy appealed the July decision to halt new licenses for LNG exports. Now The Wall Street Journal editorial board is asking, “Where’s Kamala Harris on LNG Exports?”

“The Administration’s signals are driving investment to U.S. competitors,” the board wrote, shackling the American energy industry exports that would reduce European reliance on Russian energy.

When Vice President Harris became her party’s de facto nominee this summer, the former far-left senator went from professing there is “no question I’m in favor of banning fracking” to declaring herself a sudden champion of fossil fuels.

“As vice president, I did not ban fracking,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash last month. “As president, I will not ban fracking.”

But that doesn’t mean the Biden-Harris administration never sought to regulate the industry out of business. Multiple moratoriums combined with a cascade of new rules and regulations have depressed American energy production to the point of becoming a political liability for Democrats. Now Harris is trying to reassure voters in Pennsylvania of her commitment to an industry that is critical to their state — and henceforth her election — with lies about her previous unequivocal support for a ban on fracking.

“I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States,” she said again at this month’s presidential debate. “In fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the ‘Inflation Reduction’ Act, which opened new leases for fracking.”

The legislation touted by Harris, however, included new taxes for the oil and gas industry to pay for the $369 billion bill packed with radical climate initiatives. And while Harris also claimed at the debate to have overseen “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history,” data from the Energy Department shows production is barely higher than when former President Donald Trump was in office. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration issued fewer acres for oil and gas leases than any president since Harry Truman, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Washington Free Beacon also reported in June that the “Biden administration has approved more than 1,000 fewer oil permits in its first three years than the Trump administration did in the same timeframe.”

In 2023, the Department of the Interior even published a press release touting fewer leases in the Gulf of Mexico and “zero oil and gas lease sales in the Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan waters.”

“We know no one can believe what Kamala Harris says, so it’s clear that we have to believe her actions like this disastrous LNG pause,” Larry Behrens, the communications director for the energy nonprofit Power the Future, told The Federalist. “As the sitting Vice President, she could easily lead the way in restoring natural gas exports. However, her green campaign donors would never allow it. Instead, she’s going to continue to pretend to be a moderate, especially in states like Pennsylvania, and continue to try and hide the fact that she’s really a climate extremist.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.