U.S. federal judge strikes down ban on new natural gas exports

U.S. Federal Judge James Cain Jr. of the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction in Louisiana’s favor for the State’s lawsuit against President Joe Biden and the United States Department of Energy.

The injunction is over the unlawful decision to ban new liquefied natural gas exports to non-free trade agreement countries. Judge Cain’s order lifts the LNG export ban effective immediately.

Judge Cain said in his ruling, “It appears that the DOE’s decision to halt the permit approval process for entities to export LNG to non-FTA countries is completely without reason or logic and is perhaps the epiphany of ideocracy.”

Judge Cain also asked attorneys for the federal government, “So why the change of the past normal practice? And why now?”

Shortly after that announcement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill led a coalition of 16 states in filing the lawsuit to stop the ban. Louisiana was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
“This is great news for Louisiana, our 16 state partners in this fight, and the entire country. As Judge Cain mentioned in his ruling, there is roughly $61 billion dollars of pending infrastructure at risk to our state from this illegal pause. LNG has an enormous and positive impact on Louisiana, supplying clean energy for the entire world, and providing good jobs here at home. The people of Louisiana are proud to power this nation and the world. A major victory for American energy,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill.