America’s big natural-gas footprint is about to get even bigger

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Toby Rice, who leads one of America’s largest natural-gas producers, says the “Drill, Baby, Drill" mantra that resurfaced during the presidential campaign is passé. Now, it is all about “Build, Baby, Build." Natural-gas investors are looking ahead to potential growth after a year in which historically low prices dinged profits and drilling plans.

At the same time, the Biden administration questioned the benefits of making the U.S. liquefied-natural-gas-export machine—the world’s biggest—even bigger. As climate advocates have increasingly warned of planet-warming emissions, President Biden has ramped up environmental rules and directed unprecedented sums into clean energy, rarely discussing record oil-and-gas output.

Now, with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office, climate concerns are out. New LNG hubs are slated to come online. The White House-in-waiting has promised to fast-track future infrastructure that could help gas companies funnel fuel to new buyers at home or abroad—potentially locking in another era of development.

“Political force has overwhelmed market forces," said Rice, chief executive of Pittsburgh-based EQT, which produces gobs of gas in the Marcellus Shale stretching across Appalachia. “Let market forces work." The U.S. natural-gas market has been constrained in recent years by public aversion to new pipelines and an arduous permitting process that Washington has tried and failed to overhaul.