Energy Department official says LNG export permit pause could last several months

Ever since President Joe Biden announced a pause in late Janaury on Energy Department export permits for liquified natural gas, the timeline for lifting the pause yet to be announced.

Members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources posed the question to DOE officials in a February hearing and were told only that the pause would be lifted after a thorough review of the impacts of LNG exports.

In a Bloomberg interview Friday, Brad Crabtree, assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Fuel Energy and Carbon Management, said that the pause could last “several months because this is an issue of significant importance.”

White House energy adviser Amos Hochstein, Bloomberg reports, said in an interview last month the pause could last 10 to 14 months.