House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to use President Joe Biden’s liquefied natural gas export permitting “pause” as a bargaining chip to advance Ukraine aid.
The Louisiana Republican said Sunday he would try to move bipartisan national security supplemental spending legislation that includes several “innovations,” including boosting American energy.
“We want to unleash American energy,” he said on Fox News. “We want to have natural gas exports that will help unfund Vladimir Putin’s war effort there.”
Johnson’s office declined to provide more details about what exactly the speaker was looking for. But a person familiar with the matter, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, said there have long been discussions about ways to reverse Biden’s LNG export permitting pause.
