Anything to drag America’s energy sector down and keep oil and gas prices high.

The Biden administration released a draft report on Tuesday warning of potentially negative impacts to Americans should the president’s moratorium on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports be lifted.  

The report, which concludes that growth in LNG exports could cause U.S. energy prices to climb by as much as 30% in coming years while contributing to carbon emissions, was quickly met with pushback by energy industry officials dismissing it as a “politically motivated” appeal to environmentalists. Meanwhile, one environmental group panned the same report as “weak and half-hearted.”

The study comes weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is to take office and follows on President Biden’s decision in January to pause all new U.S. LNG exports to non-Free Trade Agreement countries, citing the need to better consider climate and economic impacts of such “sizeable” growth in sales of LNG to buyers in Asia and Europe. President-elect Trump vowed on the campaign trail to quickly reverse Biden’s moratorium once he’s in office.

The Department of Energy is anticipated to publish its analysis by the year’s end, and Republicans have expressed concerns that it may be expedited to undermine the energy agenda of the incoming Trump administration.

Even though the Trump Administration will overturn Biden’s LNG export pause, unfortunately, the study’s results provide opponents with official government data that can be cited in lawsuits to try and delay the 47th President’s energy agenda. Hopefully, it won’t work.