Biden Urged to 'Follow the Facts' as Study Shows LNG Emissions 33% Worse Than Coal

More than 125 climate, environmental, and health scientists and researchers on Thursday implored the Biden administration to "follow legitimate science and reject the expansion of fossil fuel programs," pointing to a new study showing liquefied natural gas has a 33% greater greenhouse gas footprint than coal.

"As U.S. scientists and researchers we are closely following efforts by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Treasury to develop greenhouse gas analyses of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and hydrogen, and implore you to use the best available science when conducting this analysis," the scientists wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

"The stakes could not be higher," the letter asserts. "The choices that you make relating to modeling assumptions for the heat-trapping potential of natural gas will determine if the federal government will make decisions based on climate science or wishful thinking."

The scientists continued:

The main constituent in natural gas is methane, a powerful climate-disrupting pollutant that traps more than 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years, the relevant timeframe in which we must act. We agree with President [Joe] Biden's declaration to world leaders that this is the decisive decade. As the climate crisis becomes more urgent, we are rapidly approaching planetary thresholds that, once breached, cannot be reversed.

The fossil fuel industry wants you to distort the scientific evidence and asserts, falsely, that decisions to expand natural gas production and consumption are consistent with U.S. and global climate goals. They are advocating for flawed modeling assumptions that would hide the true climate impact of gas. It is imperative that the Departments of Energy and Treasury reject these efforts.

The letter's signers cite a study published this month by Cornell University climate scientist Robert Howarth which—when properly accounting for LNG's full life cycle, including extraction, liquefaction, transportation, and end-source combustion—found that the fracked gas has a 33% greater greenhouse emissions impact than coal.

"An abundance of scientific evidence now shows that natural gas is at least as damaging to the climate as coal and may be worse due to inevitable leaks and disproves the claim that natural gas can serve as a 'bridge fuel' while renewable energy sources ramp up," the scientists wrote.

Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch, said in a statement that "the science is clearer than ever: LNG exports and natural gas-sourced hydrogen pose grave risks to our planet and will undermine President Biden's own climate goals."

"This administration must ignore industry propaganda, follow legitimate science, and reject the expansion of fossil fuel programs like LNG exports and gas-sourced hydrogen," Walsh added.

Noting that "over 20 years, methane is a far more powerful climate villain than ever previously appreciated," Science & Environmental Health Network senior scientist Sandra Steingraber said that "methane is the Houdini of greenhouse gasses, escaping into the atmosphere from all parts of the natural gas system at a pace that far exceeds earlier estimates."

"Taken together, these findings mean that the stakes for the modeling assumptions chosen for estimating the climate impacts of LNG and hydrogen fuels could not be higher," Steingraber stressed. "It's imperative that our Departments of Energy and Treasury base their climate modeling assumptions on the abundance of scientific evidence and not the distorted claims and wishful thinking of the fossil fuel industry."

Despite campaign pledges to center climate action—including by banning new fossil fuel drilling on public lands—Biden oversaw the approval of more new permits for drilling on public land during his first two years in office than former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee, did in 2017 and 2018.

The Biden administration has also held fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and has approved the highly controversial Willow project and Mountain Valley Pipeline. Biden also increased liquefied natural gas production and export before pausing LNG exports earlier this year.

Despite the pause—which activists are calling on the Biden administration to make permanent—the president has also overseen what climate defenders have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects that, if all completed, would make U.S. exported LNG emissions higher than the European Union's combined greenhouse gas footprint.