The tension between money that can be made globally from runaway U.S. natural gas production and the effect that burning the fossil fuel has on the warming climate reached FERC’s doorstep Thursday.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission made it clear it would continue to consider project proposals to build export terminals for liquefied natural gas — even as the Department of Energy keeps in place a temporary freeze on issuing new licenses needed to actually ship the gas.
FERC voted 2-1 to issue a permit for the Calcasieu Pass 2 LNG project, also known as CP2. The hotly contested natural gas project planned for the Louisiana Gulf Coast would export around 20 million metric tons of the fuel a year.
The decision is a big win for its developer Venture Global. The Virginia-based company has been critical of a regulatory process that’s dragged on amid pushback from local Louisiana activists and sharp divisions over White House efforts to halt the growth of overseas natural gas shipments.