Sponsors (43)
Official title: To amend the Natural Gas Act to require that impacts to climate stability, consumer energy costs, and environmental justice be considered in a determination of whether proposed exportation of natural gas is in the public interest, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 14, 2025 by Sean Casten · Last progress January 14, 2025
The bill strengthens environmental, climate, and community protections and centralizes decisionmaking to limit export‑driven domestic harms, but does so at the cost of slower approvals, higher compliance costs, potential revenue and job losses in gas‑dependent regions, and increased administrative and legal burdens.
Households and consumers (including middle‑class and low‑income families): the bill lets DOE block exports that would materially increase U.S. energy prices or price volatility, reducing the risk of domestic price spikes.
Local and frontline communities (rural, coastal, and racial/ethnic minority communities): the bill requires stronger environmental review, cumulative‑impact evaluation, and public participation for export and marine transport projects, lowering local pollution and spill risks and improving community input.
Taxpayers and state governments: climate impacts must be evaluated using lifecycle greenhouse‑gas estimates and a 20‑year methane GWP, so decisions account for short‑lived but powerful climate pollutants and long‑term emissions.
Utilities, energy companies, energy workers, and communities that rely on gas jobs: longer, more complex reviews and added mitigation requirements are likely to delay projects, reduce export‑related investment and jobs, and slow new supply into markets.
Taxpayers and state governments: restricting or reducing LNG exports could lower federal and state tax receipts and export revenues, shifting fiscal burdens or reducing funds for public services.
Regions and workers dependent on natural gas: applying a 20‑year methane GWP and stringent lifecycle baselines could effectively bar some exports and eliminate local gas‑sector employment in affected areas.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Moves LNG export approval from FERC to DOE and requires a one-year public‑interest determination with climate, economic, and environmental‑justice analyses; voids DOE's B5.7 NEPA categorical exclusion.
Shifts federal authority to approve exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to the Secretary of Energy and requires the Secretary to issue a public-interest determination within one year after required NEPA and related assessments are complete. The Secretary must find that any export authorization will not significantly worsen climate change (using a 20-year methane GWP), will not materially raise U.S. energy prices or price volatility, and will not cause disproportionate cumulative harms to rural, low-income, minority, or other vulnerable communities. The law also removes a DOE NEPA categorical exclusion for LNG export and marine transport and directs DOE to issue implementing rules within one year of enactment.