The Obama administration got firmly behind natural gas exports Wednesday as key to boosting energy security and prosperity in Latin America. But conservative groups say to be skeptical.
“We want you to be energy secure so more people across the region can … grow,” said Vice President Joe Biden, convening a major energy summit Wednesday between the U.S., Caribbean and Central America on a landmark hemispheric energy plan. “The more you grow, the more you prosper, the better it is for my country.”
A key ingredient in that move toward prosperity will be access to U.S. natural gas exports. Biden said there is an “abundance of natural gas” in the region due to the U.S. shale boom, “which means our neighbors have access to cheaper energy.”
It’s a message that conservatives typically tout: that shale oil and gas exports are gamechangers for the United States and it allies. Critics say the administration has leaned more toward solar and wind when it comes to its energy policy because of the president’s focus on climate change in his last year in office.
The conservative group American Energy Alliance tweeted Wednesday that its a case of “good cop/bad cop” when it comes to the White House’s policy on natural gas versus renewables.
The group made the comment while retweeting an earlier Washington Examiner story on the administration changing its tune.
Tom Pyle, the group’s director, said the administration has been “two-faced” when it comes to natural gas. “Obama takes credit for stuff he didn’t do,” says Pyle. “Two dollar gas. No thanks to you, guy.”
The centerpiece of the president’s climate agenda, the Clean Power Plan, had initially relied heavily on natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country, Pyle explains. But when it was finalized and made into law, “Boom! The final rule cut [the industry] out completely.”
He said the administration taking credit for exports is a farce. If they were serious about exports, Pyle says, they would have made the export permit approval process “less random and cumbersome.”
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to push for legislation to place firm deadlines on the natural gas export license approval process because of Energy Department slow walking, holding up billions of dollars in energy investments.
The administration has an “amazing ability to cut through red tape when it come to renewables, but when it comes to hydrocarbons” its a “slow walk,” said Pyle.
Biden praised the first batch of exports sent to Latin America recently as a great achievement. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who addressed the summit alongside Biden, said the Energy Department is studying how to bring more natural gas to the Caribbean and the region.
“Clearly we are a rather signifiant producer of natural gas,” Moniz said. Since February, six cargoes of liquified natural gas have sailed to Asia, the Americas and Europe, he said.
Biden discussed Mexico’s interest in building new natural gas-fired power plants that will use U.S.-produced natural gas. In two weeks, a new gas-fired plant comes online in Monterrey, Mexico to begin transmitting 120 megawatts of electricity across the border to Guatamala, Biden said.
It’s a development that couldn’t have been dreamt of six months ago, he said. But due to reforms made in Mexico, an “energy transformation” is occuring, he added.
“There’s going to be winners and losers” in any major shift, he said. “How do we make the vast majority winners?” is the main question for public officials.
Biden also congratulated Panama on the recent upgrades to its canal system linking the Pacific and Atlantic. “Go see the two new locks that have been built,” he said. “And its a gamechanger.”
The president of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela, said the upgrades will be used to make his country into a major “hub” for liquefied natural gas from the United States to Central America and South America.
The new upgrades to the canal will expedite the arrival of exports of liquified natural gas from the United States by 11 days, he said.
The energy plan for the region includes solar, wind and geothermal resources along with natural gas.
Although lowering emissions to curb global warming is a priority for the administration, so is energy security and keeping energy prices low. So, while it continues to promote renewables, natural gas is essential to weaning the region off of coal and oil, it says.
Moniz said it is important to “pursue these intertwined threads between energy security and climate change.”
Meanwhile, during a seperate meeting between the U.S. and European countries Wednesday, a joint statement applauded the lifting of the 40-year-old ban on oil exports as a major achievement in improving global stability.
The U.S.-European Union Energy Council “welcomed the lifting of U.S. crude oil export restrictions in 2015 and the commencement of U.S. [liquefied natural gas] exports from the Gulf Coast in 2016, as they are important milestones for global energy markets that can also help improve security of supply globally and in Europe,” the statement read.
