A $3.8 billion dollar clean energy project in Lake Charles—deep in Trump country—could be in jeopardy because of the president’s proposed 2018 budget.
Bloomberg reports the landmark fossil fuel project by Houston-based developer Lake Charles Methanol LLC would take waste from oil refining and turn it into synthetic natural gas while capturing most of the pollution emitted.
Those products would be transformed into high-value chemicals like methanol and hydrogen. Carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas to blame for global warming, would be injected into the Earth to stimulate oil production.
For the promoters, the project could spur 1,000 jobs, use General Electric Co.-licensed equipment and showcase cutting-edge machinery to help decarbonize oil. The U.S. Energy Department’s loan programs office has conditionally approved a loan guarantee up to $2 billion for the project. The department’s program that would back the Lake Charles project also has designated $8.5 billion for loan guarantees for advanced-fuel projects, and the Louisiana project could be the first to benefit.
But Trump’s proposed 2018 budget targets the energy department for reductions in funding and some efforts already are underway to grandfather the Lake Charles project. Still, the debate about whether the government should lend a hand in Lake Charles could become as divisive for Republicans as the Keystone XL pipeline was for the Obama’s administration.
It pits supporting companies, Republican members of Congress and Breitbart against the Tea Party and the Heritage Foundation, which oppose handouts to companies.
“This will be their Keystone: Do you support job creation, or ideology?’’ says Brendan Bell, the former director of strategic initiatives at the Energy Department’s loan programs office. “There’s going to be a reckoning here.’’
