We tend to think politics is best viewed through that cui bono lens. Yes, this is cynical, but by identifying who does benefit from a policy it might be, could be, possible to identify who is driving the policy. And, of course, who is simply a fig leaf for that policy.
Joe Biden has, at least for a while, defused a ticking carbon bomb. Climate activists and the fossil fuel industry are now left wondering how long it .will last.
The decision on Friday by the Biden administration to pause all pending export licenses for liquified national gas (LNG) to consider the climate impact of the projects has been hailed as a momentous shift in the status quo by those concerned by the unfolding climate crisis
It is obviously possible to see that cheerleading, yes. But that climate idea is a very disparate benefit - this being one of the problems in the policy area itself of course. Further, as we all know, it’s concentrated interests who really win in politics. Therefore:
Critics, however, point to evidence that boosting LNG exports drives up domestic gas prices for Americans…
Ah, yes. We recall this from the ban on crude oil exports. Then it was legal to export oil products but not oil. So, the ban on crude exports made crude cheaper for domestic refiners to buy while their output prices were still world ones. That is, the crude export ban boosted refiner margins at the expense of driller profits.
Yes, natural gas is an input, a major price input, into a number of industrial processes. Fertilisers, a large swathe of plastics and so on. A ban on - new as here - LNG exports will boost the margins of those industrial natural gas users while not limiting their own production exports nor affect the prices they gain for them. The people who lose profits will be those drilling for natural gas. The frackers out there tend to be smaller companies than the industrial users - disperse and concentrated political interests.
Having identified the winners we then make the leap to the assumption that they are driving the policy. While that is indeed cynical our view of politics is that it is not excessively so. For being too cynical is indeed to be sad, but the correct question about politics is always “Am I being cynical enough?”