The Energy Department has coined the terms “freedom gas” and “freedom molecules” to describe its energy export agenda, eliciting derision from critics.
Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes said in a press release Tuesday that a permit to export more liquefied natural gas from the Freeport LNG Terminal located in Quintana Island, Texas, “is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world.”
Steven Winberg, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for fossil energy who signed the export order, used similar language in the press release, saying the agency is enabling “U.S. freedom to be exported to the world.”
Energy Secretary Rick Perry has previously used the phrase “exporting freedom” to describe the U.S.’ emergence as an energy exporter, with the U.S. soon to be a net exporter and expected to be a top three global exporter of LNG by 2020.
Presidential candidate Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, was among the critics who mocked the Trump administration for its framing.
“Freedom gas? Freedom is generally good, but freedom from glaciers, freedom from clean air, freedom from healthy forests that aren’t on fire, and freedom from the world we know and cherish is not what we seek,” Inslee said in a Twitter post.
Freedom gas? Freedom is generally good, but freedom from glaciers, freedom from clean air, freedom from healthy forests that aren’t on fire, and freedom from the world we know and cherish is not what we seek.
— Jay Inslee (@JayInslee) May 29, 2019
Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the Energy Department’s “freedom” language in trying to sell its agenda misrepresents the nature of energy markets, which governments have little control over.
“The rhetoric combined w pressuring Europe to buy ‘our’ gas rather than Russia’s risks politicizing a commodity whose very benefits stem from its being a flexible source of supply driven my market forces, NOT govts,” Bordoff tweeted.
The Trump administration has especially been pushing to help European allies such as Germany, Lithuania, and Poland to wean themselves off Russian energy supplies. The EU announced this month that its imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas have climbed 272% since 2016.
