A proposal to automatically grant US LNG terminals export licenses in exchange for a $1mn fee will not be allowed to be part of a budget bill that Republicans are attempting to enact before 4 July, according to an advisory from the US Senate's parliamentarian.
The program would have effectively nullified a part of the Natural Gas Act that subjects new LNG terminals to licensing requirements, and which former president Joe Biden last year used as the basis to "pause" permitting of new LNG projects last year. On Monday, the Senate parliamentarian advised that the licensing program — along with a separate plan to sell 2mn-3mn acres of public land — do not align with the filibuster-proof process that Republicans want to use for the budget bill, according to Democrats.
"Democrats will not stand idly by while Republicans attempt to circumvent the rules of reconciliation in order to sell off public lands to fund tax breaks for billionaires," Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) said.
Republicans are using the process known as budget reconciliation to pass a massive bill that would cut taxes, expand and gas leasing, repeal clean energy tax credits and make other changes with just 51 votes. Under existing rules, the Senate parliamentarian issues advisories on which programs comply with the "Byrd Rule" that excludes provisions that are "merely incidental" to the budget.
Democrats said the Senate parliamentarian also ruled against a Republican proposal to exempt offshore oil and gas projects from the National Environmental Policy Act. Another proposal to block the US Interior Department from being able to reduce fees for wind and solar projects on federal lands is also ineligible, Democrats said. The parliamentarian last week ruled against a proposal to repeal federal tailpipe standards for cars and trucks.
The parliamentarian is still reviewing a proposal to require new oil leases sales in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, and to require that 90pc of the revenue from new oil and gas leases in the Cook Inlet to go to the state of Alaska after 2035. Last week, the parliamentarian ruled against a part of the bill that would have required the US Postal Service to sell thousands of electric trucks and charging infrastructure it recently acquired.
LNG industry officials had strongly supported the $1mn fee-for-licensing proposal, the cost of which they saw as negligible compared with the benefits of automatically obtaining a license. Under existing law, the US Department of Energy will issue a license after reviewing whether doing so would be in the "public interest", and those licenses are regularly challenged in court. Earlier this month, Republicans abandoned a similar program providing guaranteed approval of new gas pipelines in exchange for a fee of up to $10mn. The apparent removal of those programs from the bill could create more pressure on Congress to work on a bipartisan permitting agreement later this year, industry officials have said.
Senate majority leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said today he was "hopeful" senators will finalize the text of the budget bill and bring it up for a vote by the end of this week. Trump today urged congressional leaders to remain in session, with the Senate voting on the bill by the end of this week, in an attempt to get the bill enacted before a self-imposed deadline of 4 July.
"NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT'S DONE," Trump wrote in a post on social media this morning.
But Republicans have yet to resolve many high-profile fights over the budget bill, including how quickly to phase down or eliminate clean energy tax credits. The Senate's bill would provide a slightly slower phase out of those tax credits, saving about $530bn over a decade, whereas the House bill would save $570bn, according to new estimates from the nonpartisan US Joint Committee on Taxation.
Trump has recently railed against the decision by Republicans to slow down the phaseout of the clean energy tax credits, siding with conservatives such as US senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has pushed for an immediate repeal based on concerns of "fake phase-outs" that would later be delayed in subsequent legislation.
"I HATE ‘GREEN TAX CREDITS' IN THE GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL," Trump wrote. "They are largely a giant SCAM."
Republicans from districts that are benefiting from the tax credits, or where new projects have been proposed, have warned that an immediate repeal would threaten billions of dollars in planned investments, limit job growth and result in higher electricity bills.
