WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today applauded the Department of Energy (DOE) for granting final approval to Freeport LNG in Texas.

The announcement follows repeated calls from Murkowski for DOE to streamline its export review policies to ensure that American natural gas can compete in the global marketplace.

“I applaud Secretary Moniz’s efforts to expedite this process,” Murkowski said. "Going into the next Congress, I look forward to working with the secretary and my colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to provide even greater certainty to DOE’s LNG export application process so that our nation can act before this narrow window of opportunity closes."

In June, Murkowski pressed DOE officials to continue issuing conditional licenses until proposed changes to its application process were finalized, to finalize those changes quickly, and then to quickly issue final licenses to projects that had already been through environmental review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC issued its approval of the Freeport LNG project in July, after DOE issued two conditional licenses in 2013.

Murkowski is the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Last year she published a white paper entitled, The Narrowing Window: America’s Opportunity to Join the Global Gas Trade, which is available on the energy panel’s website.

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