House Passes Bill Reversing Biden’s Catastrophic Natural Gas Ban
House Speaker Mike Johnson delivered a sweeping update after the GOP-led House passed the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2025—a major energy bill designed to permanently reverse former President Joe Biden’s freeze on American natural gas exports. The legislation marks a central victory for President Donald J. Trump’s second-term agenda to restore U.S. energy dominance after four years of regulatory sabotage under Biden.
In a statement celebrating the bill’s passage, Johnson emphasized the unified front between congressional Republicans and President Trump in rehabilitating America’s energy sector.
“President Trump and Congressional Republicans are working together to unleash reliable American energy to lower costs for families, support American workers and energy producers, and ensure America is never again held hostage by radical climate bureaucrats and activists,” Johnson said.
He didn’t mince words about the consequences of the Biden-era restrictions.
“President Biden’s natural gas export ban was among his most damaging policy decisions, and it was a major setback for American energy, workers, producers, consumers, partners, and allies,” he continued.
According to Johnson, the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act ensures that no future administration can reimpose such a ban. The legislation, he said, dismantles the political chokehold Biden regulators placed on domestic producers.
“The House passage of the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act helps guarantee that a ban is never placed on American LNG exports again, depoliticizes the permitting process, and unleashes American energy producers from the bonds of the Biden-era subversive bureaucratic overreach. This legislation codifies more of President Trump’s executive orders, advances Republicans’ energy dominance agenda, and returns to regular order on LNG exports so America can once again be a leader in the global market,” Johnson added.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie echoed that message, stressing that the House GOP is committed to restoring affordability and stability to America’s power grid.
“By unleashing American energy, House Republicans are leading the way to support our nation’s energy security, strengthen our grid, and lower prices for hard-working families,” Guthrie said.
He also highlighted how Biden’s policies crippled U.S. refineries and hindered domestic output.
“The REFINER Act will help to ensure our refineries are being used effectively to produce the oil, gas, and other critical feedstocks we rely upon, while the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act expands American energy production and infrastructure by removing U.S. LNG export restrictions, which the Biden-Harris Administration politicized and abused,” he added.
Rep. August Pfluger, who authored the LNG legislation, called its passage a landmark moment.
“Today’s House passage of my Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act is another major victory in achieving American energy dominance. My legislation reforms the broken, politically weaponized approval process so we can streamline permitting for exporting LNG once and for all,” Pfluger said.
He underscored what’s at stake for both economic growth and geopolitical stability.
“It’s simple: Exporting American LNG strengthens our economy, stabilizes prices, drives much-needed investment in energy infrastructure, and bolsters the energy security of our global partners. I thank my colleagues for supporting this critical legislation, and I urge its swift passage in the Senate under Senator Scott’s strong leadership,” he added.
Johnson’s office released several key takeaways about the bill, which highlight just how far the U.S. energy sector had been set back under Biden:
– Under the four years of President Biden, not a single new LNG export authorization was issued as a result of a misguided and politically motivated ban of natural gas exports.
– Since President Trump took office in January 2025, his administration has issued at least three final LNG export authorizations, and U.S. developers have made final investment decisions on six LNG export projects worth more than $70 billion.
– H.R. 1949 depoliticizes the export of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) by eliminating the requirement for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to authorize its export and instead giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sole authority over the approval process.
House Launches Hearings on Rising Violence Against Law Enforcement
In a separate move, Speaker Johnson also announced that the House will hold hearings examining the nationwide surge in violence against law enforcement officers—an issue that has gained urgency after a series of recent attacks.
The hearings come less than a week after two National Guard members—deployed to Washington, D.C., as part of President Trump’s anti-crime initiative—were ambushed and shot near the White House. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in serious condition but is showing “positive” signs of recovery.
The review will also examine other incidents of political and ideological violence targeting federal officers, including the deadly shooting earlier this year at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Dallas area.
According to an FBI report, assaults on law enforcement reached a decade high in 2023 with more than 79,000 attacks nationwide. Despite those numbers, Democrats continue to criticize President Trump’s aggressive crime-reduction strategy, which includes deploying Guard troops and federal officers to restore order in high-risk areas.
Inside the administration, momentum is building for stricter enforcement against both legal and illegal immigration—especially after last month’s deadly attack on Guard troops by an Afghan national admitted to the country under President Joe Biden.
President Trump’s team has made clear it intends to restore border integrity and reverse the permissive policies that enabled the attack.