'Who Is Ultimately In Charge?': Vince Fong Decries Lack Of Transparency Behind LNG Export Pause

2 months ago

During a House Science Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA) questioned Dept. of Energy Deputy Secretary, David Turk, about

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00:00The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Fung, for five minutes for his questions.

00:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.

00:09Thank you, Deputy Secretary Turk, for being here.

00:12At the end of April, shortly before I was sworn in,

00:15the committee sent a follow-up letter to the Secretary regarding the lack of transparency

00:20surrounding the Department of Energy's pause on U.S. liquefied natural gas export permits.

00:25Thus far, we have only gotten fragmented information from different Department officials.

00:30This committee has jurisdiction over DOE research and development,

00:34which includes the activities of the national laboratories, as you know,

00:37who have been tasked with the economic and environmental analysis DOE has said is the reason

00:41for pausing the LNG export permits.

00:44But the concern and question no one seems to be able to answer is who is ultimately in charge.

00:49So if you may, can you shed some light on which individuals are at the helm of this analysis

00:56and giving direction to the national labs regarding the scope of the topics, process,

01:01and timeline related to the administration's pause on U.S. LNG permits?

01:06Is it the lab directors or the energy secretary or someone else?

01:09And who set the parameters of what is to be considered by this study,

01:13and who has daily oversight of its progress?

01:16Yeah, thank you, Congressman, and congratulations on your election

01:18and anything that we can do from the Department of Energy side of things.

01:22Any briefings that you'd like or other kinds of things on any issues,

01:25just let us know what we can do to help.

01:28So ultimately, the secretary and I are in charge, right?

01:31She's the secretary, I'm the deputy secretary, the number two in the administration.

01:36We rely on phenomenal career technical expertise that we have,

01:41not only in our Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office,

01:43which is the lead office for this particular study, but also in our national laboratories.

01:48We've got such phenomenal career folks who know these issues inside and out.

01:53And so the analysis that we're doing as this pause is in place,

01:56and again, this pause isn't for current exports.

01:58Current exports are going.

02:00This is just a pause on additional authorizations above and beyond the 48 billion cubic feet per day

02:06of authorizations already out there.

02:09But we're updating our analysis because so much has changed.

02:12But the secretary and I are ultimately in charge, but we rely an awful lot, of course, on civil servants

02:17for the good independent analysis that's going to inform these decisions.

02:21And if I can follow up, is there anything that can or cannot be considered?

02:26How extensive is this study?

02:28So it's an extensive study.

02:31We've gone from just a few years ago, five, six years ago,

02:34having four BCF per day being exported of LNG from our country to now it's about 14, 15 BCF per day

02:41with construction already underway to take us to 26 BCF per day.

02:45So so much has changed, including the volumes of what we're exporting.

02:48So we said let's take a step back, let's update our economic analysis to figure out how this impacts

02:54not only the jobs created from the LNG export facilities,

02:58but the jobs that are dependent on affordable natural gas in our country as well.

03:03Right now we pay five to six times less for natural gas than they do in Asia and Europe.

03:08That is an incredibly competitive part of our economy right now.

03:11We need to factor that in, we need to explore that, we need to understand that.

03:15And so what we've done is undertaken a very comprehensive update

03:20and all that analysis to inform our public interest determinations.

03:23So just to be clear, you as a deputy secretary, you have daily oversight of the progress of this study?

03:29So I get updated routinely on this, but we rely on our civil servants

03:34and our experts in the Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office,

03:37working with others throughout the department and with our national laboratories

03:41to do the day-to-day work, do the analysis.

03:44What we've said is let's have a very comprehensive, let's have a very rigorous process,

03:49and we leave it up to them in terms of the particular details, the number of scenarios,

03:53the particular work that goes into it.

03:56But what we've asked—

03:57Is there a specific name of someone who oversees the daily progress of this?

04:01So Brad Crabtree is our assistant secretary for the Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office.

04:06He's got folks under him who are the day-to-day folks.

04:09Amy Sweeney is one of our career folks who's been very heavily involved, Brian P. as well.

04:14But happy to make folks available if you'd like to talk to them.

04:17Thank you very much.

04:18Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

'Who Is Ultimately In Charge?': Vince Fong Decries Lack Of Transparency Behind LNG Export Pause

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