Effective Aug. 15, the U.S. Department of Energy will no longer issue conditional decisions on export applications for LNG from the Lower 48 states to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries before the review required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The DOE announced the new policy with a Federal Register Notice after proposing the changes earlier in the year on May 29.

According to the notice, DOE will serve as a cooperating agency in approving export applications to non-FTA countries while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will serve as lead agency for LNG terminals located onshore or in state waters and the Maritime Administration will serve as lead agency for LNG terminals located offshore beyond state waters.

This policy change comes after more than 30 years of the DOE granting conditional decisions before the review process is completed, according to the notice. The department has acted on non-FTA export applications according to the order of precedence posted on its website on Dec. 5, 2012, but posted a Federal Register Notice on June 4 of this year proposing to suspend the process. Under the new process, DOE would no longer act on the applications in order of precedence, but in the order they become ready for final action.

The policy change will not affect the validity of conditional authorizations already issued. The department also stated that it could not say whether Alaskan projects may have unique features warranting the DOE’s discretionary authority to issue conditional decisions, as no long-term LNG export applications from Alaska were currently pending.