Daily Caller
Biden Admin ‘Intentionally Buried’ Inconvenient Study To Justify Major Energy Crackdown, Sources Say
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Nick Pope
The Biden administration deliberately buried a final draft version of a study that would have undermined its January 2024 decision to pause approvals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, according to four Department of Energy (DOE) sources.
Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and former President Joe Biden announced the LNG freeze in January 2024, stating that it would remain in place until the DOE could conduct a fresh study of the climate and economic impacts of LNG export growth. The Biden DOE finalized a draft of the study in 2023 and subsequently buried it because the initial version’s findings would have contradicted the administration’s rationale for the LNG freeze, according to four sources inside the Trump DOE granted anonymity by the Daily Caller News Foundation to freely discuss a sensitive matter.
“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told the DCNF. “They were prioritizing their own political ambitions over the interests of the American people, and the administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.”
The Biden DOE had essentially completed the final draft version of the LNG impacts study by the end of September 2023, and that version was ready to be presented to top Biden officials shortly thereafter, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That particular iteration of the study, DOE sources told the DCNF, found that increasing U.S. LNG exports would actually bring about a reduction in global emissions relative to other scenarios.
That particular finding is at odds with Granholm’s analysis of the final version of the study released to the public in December 2024, in which she argued that any increase in LNG exports will result in higher global greenhouse gas emissions.
At the end of September 2023, a Biden administration official left a comment on the final draft version that instructed others to halt work on it until further notice, despite other language in the document stating that the final version was to be published sometime around the end of September 2023, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That version of the study was never released publicly, and the Biden DOE considered it to be a “working document” given that the agency subsequently categorized it as part of an internal deliberative process, according to DOE sources.
Additionally, the Biden DOE appears to have deleted numerous pages that appeared in the September 2023 draft version from what became the final version of the report released to the public at the end of 2024, the Trump DOE sources told the DCNF.
While the September 2023 and December 2024 versions of the paper bear the same name, the final version released to the public did not include a specific type of analysis of LNG exports known as the consideration of market effects, Trump DOE sources told the DCNF. That particular analysis — included in the buried September 2023 version of the study, but not the final product — found that U.S. LNG exports would bring down global emissions by displacing more polluting sources of energy abroad, and its absence from the December 2024 version allowed the Biden DOE to skew the final report’s findings against increasing LNG exports.
The evidence showing that the Biden administration buried the initial, politically inconvenient version of the study and misled the American public in the process will soon be transmitted to Congress and to the public, DOE sources told the DCNF.
Granholm and Biden each made statements after the pause was announced implying that the administration was freezing LNG export approvals to pursue answers that Trump DOE sources say had already been found, and that Biden officials chose to ignore. Specifically, both Biden and Granholm suggested that increased LNG exports would be a net negative for the global climate, with Granholm definitively saying as much after the final study was released to the public in December 2024.
“During this period, we will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security, and our environment. This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” Biden said in a statement the day the pause was announced. “While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my Administration will not be complacent. We will not cede to special interests.”
Notably, House Speaker Mike Johnson recalled to The Free Press in January 2025 that Biden “genuinely didn’t know what he had signed” when he asked the president about the decision to freeze LNG approvals in January 2024, with the Republican adding that he left that meeting with the impression that Biden was not actually running the country in practice.
The DOE stated that it would “initiate” a review to determine whether increasing LNG exports is in the public interest in its statement on Jan. 26, 2024, the day the pause was announced.
Granholm claimed that the final version of the study released to the public in December 2024 demonstrates that “in every scenario, increases in LNG exports would lead to increases in global net emissions,” and that “a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable.” When the pause was first announced in January 2024, Granholm said in a statement that the review “will ensure that DOE remains a responsible actor using the most up-to-date economic and environmental analyses.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
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Ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, developers are carving a four-lane highway through protected tracts of the Amazon rainforest to ease travel for attendees.
The highway, one of several infrastructure projects fast-tracked for the summit, is meant to ease congestion for the more than 50,000 attendees expected in November. The state government insists the road is a “sustainable” development with wildlife crossings, bike lanes and solar lighting, but local critics argue it contradicts the very mission of the climate conference, according to the BBC.
“Everything was destroyed,” Claudio Verequete, a local resident whose family depended on the açaí trees that once stood where the road now cuts through the forest, told the BBC. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
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The highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, had been shelved multiple times in the past due to environmental concerns but was revived as part of a broader push to modernize Belém ahead of COP30, according to the outlet. State officials say the city’s transformation will leave a lasting legacy, including an expanded airport, new hotels and an ungraded port to accommodate cruise ships.
Adler Silveira, the Brazilian state of Pará’s infrastructure secretary, defended the highway project in a statement to the BBC, calling it an “important mobility intervention” that will benefit the local population long after the summit ends.
Satellite images of the area appear to show miles of cleared land where dense rainforest once stood. Conservationists warn that beyond immediate deforestation, the road could enable further illegal logging and land speculation, fragmenting ecosystems critical to carbon absorption, the BBC reported.
“From the moment of deforestation, there is a loss,” Silvia Sardinha, a wildlife veterinarian at a university near the site of the new highway, told the BBC. “Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
The annual UN Climate Change Conference gathers world leaders, lawmakers, scientists and industry representatives to negotiate global climate policy. Discussions typically center around greenhouse gas emissions, phasing out fossil fuel, adapting industries to climate benchmarks and enforcing international agreements like the Paris Accord, as well as topics like deforestation. At previous summits, speakers have advocated for policies such as taxing meat products and naming extreme heat events to create greater awareness of temperature changes. Taliban officials from Afghanistan also attended the COP29 in 2024, as UN agencies reportedly considered unlocking funds for the nation to combat climate crises. The COP28 the year prior included a discussion on sustainable yachting.
The Amazon rainforest, previously called the “lungs of the Earth,” now reportedly emits more carbon dioxide than it absorbs due to rampant deforestation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Attendees of the 2025 climate summit are expected to include representatives from nearly every UN member state, as well as corporate leaders in the renewable energy industry such as Siemens Gamesa.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, remarked that “it’s a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon,” adding the conference will be “historic and a landmark” in a February press release. The COP30 summit is scheduled for Nov. 10 through Nov. 21.
Business
Ontario Premier Doug Ford Apologizes To Americans After Threatening Energy Price Hike For Millions
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized to Americans Tuesday after he suspended a 25% electricity surcharge that he initially said he would be “relentless” in pursuing.
Ford implemented a 25% surcharge on electricity to New York, Michigan and Minnesota on Monday, but quickly rescinded the policy and apologized to Americans on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio show the following day. The tariffs were initially a retaliatory measure against President Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs against Canada since he assumed office.
Canada is highly dependent on U.S. exports, economists told CNN, and the planned electricity surcharge would likely hurt Canada’s energy industry much more than it would the U.S., although an estimated 1.5 million homes and businesses would have been affected.
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“I want to apologize to the American people. I spent 20 years of my life in the US, in New Jersey, in Chicago. I love the American people,” Ford said. “I absolutely love them … Secretary Lutnick and President Trump are brilliant businesspeople. They are hard negotiators. We need to put this behind us and move forward and build the two strongest countries in the world.”
Initially, Ford had a much more aggressive tone when he instituted the tariffs.
“We will not back down. We will be relentless. I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country, on families, on jobs, and it’s unacceptable,” Ford said on MSNBC in response to Trump’s hiking of steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump, in turn, threatened to increase the steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to 50%, with the increase going into effect the next day.
Ford then talked with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, with the premier describing the call as “productive.” Once Ford backed down on his plan to implement the export fees, Trump reversed his planned hike to 50% on steel and aluminum tariffs. Ford is expected to meet with Lutnick Thursday in Washington, D.C.
If a deal is not reached by the April 2 deadline, the tariffs will resume.
Ontario sold around 12 terawatt hours of electricity to America in 2023, with the U.S. being Ontario’s largest energy customer outside Canada. The tariff would have likely added “100$ a month” to the bill of Americans in the affected states, Ford claimed according to CNN.
The U.S. and Canada have entered into a contested debate over trade policies, with Canada announcing an additional $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on American goods in response to Trump’s initial 25% steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump initially gained concessions from Canada in February, forcing them to aid in curtailing the illegal fentanyl trade in exchange for a pause on a 25% general goods tariff enacted Feb. 1. However, Trump eventually let the pause expire, with the tariff resuming in March.
“Canada is a tariff abuser, and always has been, but the United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” Trump said on Truth Social Mar. 10.
The Ontario Premier’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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