President Donald Trump’s sweeping Day One energy executive orders also reached into the gears of government to boost the prospects of a single company with a floundering liquefied natural gas project.
The move to smooth a path for Delfin LNG off Louisiana goes beyond Trump’s broader effort to free the industry from former President Joe Biden’s climate-inspired oversight. Environmental critics are calling the help for Delfin a “handout.”
The Delfin project found itself facing strong headwinds last year when the U.S. Maritime Administration denied the company a license to construct its deepwater port for gas exports about 40 nautical miles from Louisiana’s coast.
The agency — often referred to as MARAD — told the company to go back and submit a revised application. In a letter last April, the agency said the design, financing and operational plans for the facility had changed too dramatically since the agency recommended approval in 2017.
Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” order issued Monday included a provision to put the Delfin project back on track. The section orders MARAD, which is part of the Department of Transportation, to reevaluate only the project’s environmental effects, skipping past factors like design, financing and operational plans.
The order directs DOT to issue Delfin a license if it finds the project has essentially the same foreseeable environmental effects as projected in 2017.
That smacks of favoritism to LNG skeptics like Alan Zibel, a research director at Public Citizen. The consumer advocacy group has warned that gas exports could drive up prices for utility ratepayers in the United States.
“This is the corporate favor-trading that characterized the first Trump administration and will characterize the second Trump administration,” Zibel said, adding that the “Day One handout by the Trump administration is likely the first of many forthcoming giveaways” to gas exporters.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. MARAD and Delfin also did not provide comments when asked about Trump’s order by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The roughly 370-word provision — set among other sections of Trump’s energy order that take aim at a broad range of environmental regulations — is detailed and legalistic.
But only one project fits the description laid out in the order: Delfin LNG. Its backers have been working on the project for at least 10 years. The facility is designed to connect a large undersea pipeline to support up to four floating liquefied natural gas vessels that can supercool the gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, shrinking it to 1/600th of its original volume for transport. The company said it will be capable of producing about 13 million metric tons of LNG a year.
The website of Delfin Midstream, which is developing Delfin LNG and other projects, lists offices in Houston and Norway.
‘Slow-walking’?
MARAD’s decision last year to deny the key permit to Delfin didn’t get much attention, amid fights about a DOE pause on permit approvals for LNG exports to non-free-trade-agreement countries imposed by the Biden administration.
In 2017, during the first Trump administration, MARAD had approved Delfin’s plan to build, own and operate the deepwater port in a document called a record of decision, or ROD. But Delfin’s ownership and other plans for the project changed by 2024, the last full year of the Biden administration.
Delfin would no longer be owning and operating the whole project, according to MARAD’s denial letter. Instead, the floating LNG vessels to be used for the project could be owned and operated by third parties. And developers had changed the cooling and power generation systems and other operations of the project.
“MARAD will not issue a license at this time as the ROD no longer supports the issuance of a license,” the agency said in its letter, signed by Bill Paape, the agency’s associate administrator for ports and waterways. “These changes resulted in a revised proposal that is not the same as that approved under the ROD,” adding that they would “require a thorough, statutorily required, interagency and public review.”
Delfin Midstream CEO Dudley Poston defended the project in an email exchange last year with Energy Intelligence, saying “These refinements increased efficiency, lowered emissions, significantly reduced water consumption and resulted in a smaller environmental footprint.”
Also in 2024, Delfin Midstream increased its spending on federal lobbying to $290,000, which was nearly double what it spent in 2023.
The project denial did get attention in Washington from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who took the opportunity at a recent confirmation hearing for Sean Duffy — Trump’s nominee to run the Transportation Department — to push the department to approve Delfin.
Cruz accused the Biden administration of “thoughtlessly and needlessly” forcing Delfin to “start its application from scratch” after “slow-walking it for five years.”
Cruz aides did not respond to questions Wednesday from E&E News about whether Cruz asked Trump to include the Delfin-related language in his executive order.
Public Citizen, in regulatory filing last year, said the delays were Delfin’s own fault.
“It appears Delfin LNG’s ownership was unprepared and inexperienced in developing such a complex project,” the consumer advocacy group stated.