Senator Wyden Recites Flaws in DOE/NERA Study of Potential Impacts of LNG Exports; Senate Energy Committee Staff Named

摘要

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, expressed doubts about the recent study, authored by NERA Economic Consulting for the Department of Energy (DOE), on the impact of natural gas exports on the U.S. economy. In a lengthy letter to DOE sent Thursday, he charged that the study is seriously flawed, and requested that the Department correct the errors, or start from scratch, before using it as part of any LNG export decisions. (See FR 2928 for review of report, pp1-6) “The shortcomings of the NERA study are numerous and render this study insufficient for the Department to use in any export determination,” Wyden wrote, in a letter to Energy Secretary Steve Chu. “The NERA study would need to be updated with new EIA projections, more realistic market assumptions, regional impacts of the proposed actual export terminals, and evaluations of the actual impacts on consumers and businesses of exporting LNG.”