Important story for the climate, and the election.
Climate politics driving policy.
The Biden administration is delaying a decision on a Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project that would be the United States’ largest, but which has raised the ire of environmentalists, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
With an export capacity of around 20 million metric tonnes per year, Venture Global LNG’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) project would be twice the size of the company’s present CP plant. If built, it would make Venture Global one of the largest LNG companies in the world.
The Biden administration is pausing a decision on whether to approve what would be the largest natural gas export terminal in the United States, a delay that could stretch past the November election and spell trouble for that project and 16 other proposed terminals, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
The White House is directing the Energy Department to expand its evaluation of the project to consider its impact on climate change, as well as the economy and national security, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations. The Energy Department has never rejected a proposed natural gas project because of its expected environmental impact.
The move comes as Mr. Biden gears up for what is likely to be a contentious re-election campaign. He is courting climate voters, particularly the young activists who helped him win election in 2020 and who have been angered by his administration’s approval last year of the Willow project, an enormous oil drilling operation in Alaska.
It also comes as the United States leads the world in both liquefied natural gas exports and oil and gas production. The country has seven export terminals with five more already under construction.
Voters’ concerns about climate change may have delivered the 2020 U.S. presidential election for Joe Biden, a new analysis suggests.
Climate change is a highly polarized issue in U.S. politics; Democratic candidates and elected officials generally support climate action and Republicans generally oppose it. But climate concern is increasing among voters across the political spectrum. As a result, “climate change gives the Democrats an electoral advantage, all else equal,” says study team member Matthew Burgess, an environmental economist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “We estimated that this advantage was probably large enough to give them the White House in 2020.”
Burgess and his colleagues first gathered data from a variety of recent polls to gauge the state of U.S. voters’ opinions and concerns about climate change. This effort revealed that a large majority of voters are concerned about climate change; climate-concerned voters outnumber those who don’t see climate change as important by nearly two to one.
A majority of Democrats and independents are worried about climate change, but climate concern is also prominent among younger and moderate Republicans. The proportion of voters who are concerned about climate change has increased in recent years, and voters who are concerned about climate change tend to prefer Democratic candidates.
“In 2020, Joe Biden had a 75-point advantage among all voters rating climate change as ‘very important’ and a 72-point advantage among independents with this climate opinion,” Burgess and his collaborators write in a report released January 17. One-quarter of Republicans who see climate change as “very important” pulled the lever for Biden.
Biden. Yuck. No worries. Trump will approve it.
peon.
I prefer the term “Deplorable.”
We at the Peon Anti-defamation League would like to remind you that while a peon is often looked down upon for their menial labor, they are in essence honest workers.
Peon as in wants ‘to be told what to do’ as a peon is. Maybe ‘happily servile’ would have been better?
Replace peon with dupe.
Trump would fish for a bribe to approve it. He’s very practiced at monetizing the presidency.
“Banks must stay away from these projects.”
Definitely a good target, especially if the banks (as many have) have made vague greenwashing statements in their public relations.
Biden is doing his best to make the EU more dependent on Russian gas and the far east more dependent on middle east gas. It’s called his “Make America Last Again” program.