Press release from department said increasing export capacity is ‘critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

America is the land of freedom, as any politician will be happy to tell you. What you don’t hear quite so often is that the stuff under the land is also apparently made of freedom as well. That is, at least according to a news release this week from the Department of Energy (DoE).

Mark W Menezes, the US undersecretary of energy, bestowed a peculiar honorific on our continent’s natural resources, dubbing it “freedom gas” in a release touting the DoE’s approval of increased exports of natural gas produced by a Freeport LNG terminal off the coast of Texas.

“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy,” he said.

ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) actual Trump admin quote: "Increasing export capacity from the Freeport [liquid natural gas] project is critical to spreading freedom gas" https://t.co/KgZdh3V2Mt

The concept of “freedom gas” may seem amorphous, but it’s actually being measured down to the smallest unit.

“With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world,” said Steven Winberg.

Jay Inslee (@JayInslee) This has to be a joke. (Remember freedom fries?) https://t.co/ei9Idg613X

It’s unclear if members of the Trump administration attempting to assign patriotic intentions to natural gas are aware of the silliness of the concept, but Rick Perry seems to believe in it.

“Seventy-five years after liberating Europe from Nazi Germany occupation, the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent,” the energy secretary said earlier this month, according to EURACTV.

“And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”