Australia-based energy firm Woodside announced Monday plans to invest $17 billion in a new liquefied natural gas export facility to be sited in south Louisiana. Company CEO and Managing Director Meg O’Neill said the Louisiana LNG facility represents the single largest greenfield energy project investment, and the largest foreign direct investment in the state’s history.
In a release, the company said the project will support 15,000 jobs during the construction phase and, when completed, will sport a total export capacity of more than 27 million tons per annum of LNG. Originally named the Driftwood LNG project by previous owner Tellurian, Woodside acquired the project in 2024 for just $900 million.
The timing of Woodside’s announcement on Monday, which represented the 99th day of President Donald Trump’s second administration, serves to symbolize the impressive success the President and his senior appointees have had in completely changing the energy and climate policy debate in the U.S. across their first 100 days. Nowhere has this sea change in policy been more obvious than as it relates to the LNG export industry.
When Trump was sworn into office on January 20, America’s LNG sector had spent the previous 358 days as a target of demonization by former President Joe Biden and his senior officials. That stemmed from the decision by the White House to implement a so-called “pause” in permitting of new LNG facilities like Louisiana LNG on January 27 last year. Prior to last November’s election, that pause appeared destined to become a permanent feature of federal policy had Kamala Harris won the presidency.
President Trump canceled the Biden pause with a Day 1 executive order, and the industry has since resumed the pace of rapid expansion that had made it one of America’s great growth industries prior to Biden’s irrational move last year.
The resumption of the LNG industry’s rapid growth path is just one of many success stories which Trump’s energy team of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin can point to at the end of this first 100 days time period.
At Interior, Secretary Burgum can point to his efforts to return the federal oil and gas leasing program to normal order both onshore and offshore after four years of its being held hostage by Biden’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. He can also highlight last week’s announcement detailing efforts to speed up permitting approvals related requirements under the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
Zeldin is able to point to his effort to freeze $20 billion in highly questionable grants awarded by his predecessor, Michael Regan, during the final days of the Biden presidency, and claw them back a major savings. He has also embarked on a study focused on the potential reversal of the Obama EPA’s endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, a finding that classifies carbon dioxide, the fundamental building block for all life on Planet Earth, as a pollutant which can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. A successful reversal of that finding could lead to the restoration of honesty in air quality regulation and a focus on elimination of real pollution, which was the intent of the law as it was passed by congress.
Secretary Wright has less ability to directly impact regulatory polices to the nature of his job, but he has become the most effective spokesman for commonsense energy policies to ever hold the Energy Secretary position. He has not shied away from taking on controversial topics, like the need to revitalize the nation’s coal industry to take advantage of America’s enormous wealth of that resource. Wright has also been very blunt and effective in highlighting the role the wind industry has played in forcing consumer utility costs up to all-time highs under the Biden administration.
Taken as a whole, it is hard to imagine a more impactful 100 days related to energy and climate policy than this administration has achieved. Trump’s legion of critics won’t agree with the direction he and his appointees have taken, but they can’t honestly claim they aren’t producing major results. For Trump and his team, it is a simple case of promises made, promises kept.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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