The Biden administration announced a freeze Friday on new export permits for natural gas while it studies their impact on climate change — despite those exports' role in bolstering the U.S. economy and Washington's influence in Europe.

The announcement, part of a review that POLITICO first reported two weeks ago, is the most sweeping step yet by President Joe Biden to clamp down on a fossil fuel industry that has prospered on his watch (despite Republican rhetoric to the contrary). It also shows the resurgence of environmental groups’ influence on the White House as Biden ramps up his political campaign ahead of November’s election.

The action comes a month after the U.N. climate summit in Dubai, where the U.S. joined nearly 200 other nations in pledging a “transition” away from fossil fuels. Biden said in a statement that he remained committed to fighting climate change, which he called "the existential threat of our time."

"While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my administration will not be complacent. We will not cede to special interests," he said.

But Republicans and gas industry advocates denounced the action.

"It’s a national security disaster and a climate disaster,” Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said in an interview this week after reports emerged about the pending action. “When we export clean-burning American natural gas to countries in Asia it reduces emissions. So all they are doing is sucking up to their far left base, undermining jobs, undermining national security and undermining the environment."

The review would put a hold on approvals for about 10 projects that have applied for permits but not yet received them, and whose backers have not made final investment decisions whether to build them. That includes the CP2 project, a massive facility that gas exporter Venture Global plans to build along the Louisiana coast. But exports themselves are still expected to soar in the coming years because of projects already approved and under construction.

White House officials said they did not think the moratorium on new projects would throttle gas shipments to Europe. White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi put the decision in context of Biden’s climate goals, saying it was in line with the agreement the United States and other countries made last year at COP 28.

“We're doing this weeks removed from a UN climate conference where........

© Politico