Environmental Groups Sound Alarm on LNG Industry’s ‘Hydrogen-Ready’ Bait-and-Switch
WASHINGTON – Today, 25 National and Gulf groups sent a letter to the Department of Energy, urging that no funding from the Regional Hydrogen Hub program be used to subsidize LNG infrastructure under the guise of ‘hydrogen-ready’ exports. Despite technical and economic barriers to hydrogen-ready LNG, recent statements from the G7 forum raise concerns that the United States could be lending political and financial support to wasteful and harmful LNG projects. The DOE is expected to select up to ten hub projects for funding by the end of the year.
“The biggest risk of federal hydrogen investments is that they will prolong the life of fossil fuel assets while locking in, or even increasing, our unsustainably high level of emissions,” the letter warns. “This is undeniably true of hydrogen-ready LNG.”
Signatories of the letter, in alphabetical order, released the following quotes:
“We need the Biden Administration to condemn this greenwashing scam, not subsidize it,” said Sarah Lutz, Climate Campaigner at Friends of the Earth US. “The rampant expansion of US LNG exports is a climate disaster. Dressing up LNG infrastructure as ‘hydrogen-ready’ should be treated as a laughable bait-and-switch.”
“In a time when coastal communities desperately need resources to defend themselves against the climate crisis, the Biden administration continues to allow false solutions like hydrogen-ready LNG to receive heavy government subsidies,” said Shreyas Vasudevan, Campaign Coordinator at Louisiana Bucket Brigade, “By providing these industries with funding earmarked for the clean energy transition, the administration is actively protecting the fossil fuel industry. False solutions like ‘hydrogen-ready LNG’ can’t receive any more government support.”
“President Biden’s LNG export expansion has already proved to be a disaster for American consumers and frontline communities. Adding subsidies to include hydrogen in this fiasco will waste taxpayer resources and delay needed solutions to decarbonization,” said Tyson Slocum, Energy Program Director for Public Citizen.
“Why in the world do Biden and Granholm trust the very same corporations driving this climate emergency and perpetuating environmental racism with billions of our taxpayer dollars?” asks Jeffrey Jacoby, Deputy Director with Texas Campaign for the Environment. “Seems pretty obvious the Department of Energy – and frankly this entire administration – is captured by fossil fuel interests and totally willing to invest our money enabling rich, elite oil and gas barons to be the ones truly in charge of our climate future.”
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