On April 2, 2025, the Department of Energy announced that it is rescinding Biden-era guidance on how authorizations to export natural gas could be extended.
Under section 3 of the Natural Gas Act, domestic gas producers must obtain an authorization from DOE before exporting gas overseas. Those authorizations include an expiration date by which the holder must commence exports or lose the authorization. Under the now-rescinded 2023 Policy Statement, the Department would only grant an extension to that deadline if the authorization holder could show that it had begun construction on the export facility and that complying with the initial deadline was impossible because of factors outside of the authorization holder’s control.
In DOE’s new announcement and accompanying notice in the Federal Register, the Department indicated that going forward extensions would be granted upon a showing of good cause on a case-by-case basis. The announcement identified about twenty export authorizations that may be affected by this change, and noted that DOE’s action was designed to give effect to President Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” Executive Order.