While Biden/Harris stall LNG exports France more than doubles Russian imports

In a presidential race in which Democrat Kamala Harris has not done a single interview (as of August 7) or outlined a single policy position on her website, a robust discussion of a relatively obscure policy area (liquefied natural gas exports) may be too much to ask. However, the US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars funding Ukraine’s war effort. And, the Biden Administration has stopped permitting LNG export terminals (we don’t know what happened as a result of a recent ruling).

So, it was with interest that we noted that France had increased Russian LNG imports to 4.4 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas in the first half of the year when compared to more than 2 billion cubic meters in the same period a year ago. In other words, while the US is spending big bucks to fund a war against Russia, the Biden Administration (to please its radical environmental base) is also throttling exports of LNG that could undermine Russia’s energy revenues. As the article notes, supporters of Ukraine are not pleased.

Will anyone make this point in the presidential campaign? We have no idea. Trump could have taken Biden to task on it in their debate when asked about energy but he didn’t. The media are behind Harris and haven’t asked her basic questions let alone something requiring an iota of insight like this.

Of course, it is worth repeating that New Mexico is one of the top natural gas producing states in the nation and could benefit economically from increased LNG exports.