Energywire: DOE will consider challenge to Cheniere LNG export license

The Energy Department has agreed to consider a challenge by the Sierra Club of the sole license it has granted for the export of liquefied natural gas to countries with which the United States lacks a free-trade agreement.

DOE issued the license to a subsidiary of Cheniere Energy Corp. in August for exports from the proposed redevelopment in Cameron Parish, La., of its Sabine Pass import facility into an export terminal. That export application was the furthest along in DOE's queue of more than a dozen proposed projects; all other such licenses have been put on hold pending the development of a formal policy on expanding exports.

But after DOE issued its "final opinion and order" on Cheniere's license in August, the Sierra Club asked for a rehearing on the issue, arguing that DOE had failed to adequately consider the upstream environmental impacts of natural gas production, and especially those of hydraulic fracturing, which it said are inextricably linked to exports.  MORE (free trial available)