Category: Wires

A federal planning commission on Thursday delayed a vote on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom until next month, citing “significant public input,” including tens of thousands of comments — nearly all of them critical of the project.

The National Capital Planning Commission had planned to review the proposal and vote on it — the final procedural hurdle for an effort to dramatically remake one of the most revered symbols of American power and democracy.

But partway into the meeting, commission Chair Will Scharf said that he expects public comment to last five to nine hours, with over 100 people signed up to testify, which will likely require the board to recess Thursday evening and resume Friday morning. The commission will discuss and vote on the project at its April 2 meeting, he said.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, the agency received more than 35,000 comments about the project, according to a Washington Post analysis of submissions posted on the commission’s website. The “vast majority” came from those who oppose the plan, commission staff said. The Washington Post found that more than 97% of comments were critical of the president’s plans. (The Post used artificial intelligence to classify the submissions and measured its accuracy against a hand-checked sample.)

The delayed vote is a snag in Trump’s push to rush the project through the approval process so construction can be completed before the end of his second term. Securing approval at the commission’s next meeting, however, could keep the project on schedule; the White House has said it plans to begin aboveground construction as soon as next month.

The commission’s endorsement would be the last bureaucratic obstacle in the Trump administration’s push to secure approval for the $400 million ballroom from two federal committees charged by Congress with reviewing the designs of major construction projects in Washington. Late last year, the White House laid out a strategy to complete the process within nine weeks, a plan that’s now been pushed to just over three months.

Historic preservationists have sued to stop the project, and a federal judge is considering their challenge, which alleges that Trump is unlawfully pursuing a project that requires express authorization from Congress.

Last week, the National Capital Planning Commission’s executive director, Marcel Acosta, recommended that the 12-member panel approve the project. In an 11-page report published Friday, Acosta said the proposed structure will provide presidents with a larger permanent event space while protecting “the historic integrity and cultural landscape of the White House.”

Acosta’s assessment contrasts sharply with the public response. Tens of thousands of comments criticized what opponents described as a rushed approval process, insufficient public input and a design that would overshadow the main White House building.

The president has made the building a priority of his second term, and he returns to it often in public remarks and social media posts. He clashed with the project’s previous lead architect about the size of the addition.

Trump has made strategic moves to secure its success, including reshaping the membership of the two federal bodies that must sign off on the project: the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Last month, the Commission of Fine Arts, which now includes Trump’s 26-year-old executive assistant, voted unanimously to approve the project. Chair Rodney Mims Cook Jr. called it a “desperately needed” and “very beautiful structure,” whose design he credited to Trump.

The National Capital Planning Commission is led by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary and Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom the president appointed in July. The commission includes a pair of other White House officials, James Blair and Stuart Levenbach. It also has nine seats apportioned to sitting cabinet secretaries and other officials who have a role in overseeing Washington, although senior officials and lawmakers usually send a representative in lieu of attending themselves.

Although federal design commissions have traditionally acted as a constraint on government construction projects — often holding extended deliberations that last for years — Trump has pressed to move the project along swiftly so it can wrap before his term concludes.

Last year, the president ordered the rapid demolition of the East Wing annex without first seeking authorization from Congress or the review committees. Trump’s plan for a new ballroom building on the site that matches the “height and scale” of the main White House has advanced despite objections from a federal judge, architecture experts and historic preservationists, who argue that the structure would be too big, dwarfing a centuries-old American symbol.

White House officials want the commission to approve in one fell swoop the ballroom building’s preliminary and final plans, which the body normally takes up individually at separate meetings, giving agency planners time to incorporate commission feedback before resubmitting updated plans. For example, the planning commission approved a new White House perimeter fence in three steps over seven months, starting with a conceptual design in July 2016 and ending with final plans in February 2017.

Last week, Trump scored another victory on the ballroom front. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled that construction on the project could proceed, citing procedural problems with a lawsuit challenging the president’s ability to unilaterally build the structure. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a congressionally chartered organization that advocates for protecting historic sites, amended and refiled its complaint Sunday, three days after Leon’s ruling.

Trump has repeatedly defended the project’s $400 million price tag, saying it is a benefit to taxpayers that the project will be paid for with private donations.

“I built many a ballroom. I believe it’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world,” Trump said Monday at a ceremony in which he awarded the Medal of Honor to three Army soldiers.

Democrats and government watchdog organizations have raised concerns about those donors, which include major corporations such as Amazon, Google, and Palantir — companies that together have billions of dollars in federal contracts. Critics have questioned whether donors could receive special access or other benefits in return. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.) Some Democrats say improvements to the White House complex may be warranted but contend that the ballroom should be far smaller and subject to congressional oversight to ensure transparency.

Polls have found that most Americans oppose the project. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they supported tearing down the East Wing to build the ballroom, compared with 58% who opposed doing so, according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted last month.

Countries across Europe and Asia are facing a potential energy crisis after an Iranian drone strike shut down Qatar’s exports of liquefied natural gas this week, cutting off nations from India to Italy from a crucial energy source and potentially increasing costs for key industries in the United States.

Qatar is a linchpin of a global energy system built on LNG, a fossil fuel less polluting than coal that many countries have embraced because it is easy to ship and store, and was sourced from generally stable countries.

Now consumers and businesses from Seoul to Islamabad to Brussels may face steeply higher energy costs, after an Iranian drone struck Qatar’s largest gas liquefaction plant in Ras Laffan, south of Doha on Monday. The strike was part of attacks by Iran on energy infrastructure in Qatar and fellow U.S. ally Saudi Arabia.

Qatar Energy, which produces and exports LNG, said in a statement Monday that it “ceased production” at the facility. On Wednesday, it announced it would not be able to honor export contracts.

It is unclear how long it will take Qatar Energy to repair the plant. Analysts say returning to full production would take another two weeks after repairs are complete.

Shipping any gas Qatar produces is another challenge, as vessel traffic through the region is halted by Iran’s attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. There are 1,000 ships idled, according to the Lloyd’s Market Association, half of them holding oil or gas. The shipping industry is trying to work out an arrangement with the U.S. government for military escorts, which President Donald Trump says will be offered.

Countries around the world are scrambling to figure out how to backfill the abrupt halt of LNG shipments from Qatar, which accounts for one-fifth of the world’s supply. Asian spot LNG prices surged nearly 40% in the past couple of days, and a key index of future LNG prices in Europe jumped 70% since Friday.

Analysts warn the natural gas crunch is likely to have more severe and far-reaching economic impacts than the Iran conflict’s disruption to oil markets, even if abundant gas supplies in the U.S. shield American consumers from short-term price spikes.

“Oil is exported from practically every country in that region,” said Pavel Molchanov, an investment strategy analyst at Raymond James. “LNG more or less comes from one country there: Qatar.”

The sudden shutoff of Qatari LNG is expected to quickly hit nations across Asia and Europe that depend on Qatari gas, with domestic energy bills likely to spike and factories at risk of shutting down.

Some countries will likely bring mothballed coal plants back online, analysts predicted, a costly reversal that could also massively increase carbon emissions and other air pollution.

The Business Standard, a Bangladeshi newspaper, reported Tuesday that officials at the country’s energy ministry had ordered an increase in power generation from coal. Taiwan is examining similar options, according to Argus, a firm that tracks global energy markets. Prices of Asian coal futures jumped sharply this week.

“The first response would likely be to seek out LNG supply from other regions,” Zhi Xin Chong, head of Asia Gas Research at S&P Global Energy, said in an email.

But producers like the U.S., Australia, and Malaysia have little extra to spare, causing prices for what is available to soar. Chong said if the fuel proves “too expensive and difficult to procure, markets like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India and Southeast Asia will likely pivot to coal where possible.”

Some of the countries most dependent on Qatar for energy are also among the least able to pay the premium for emergency replacements. In some cases the economic fallout is expected to cascade back to the U.S. due to how LNG underpins other industrial sectors.

In India, the second-largest importer of Qatari LNG, gas supplies to industrial users are being cut, according to local media reports, leading ceramics manufacturers in that country to pause operations. Utilities in Pakistan, which is even more reliant on Qatar, are also starting to cut their deliveries of gas to industrial clients, Bloomberg News reported.

In both countries, the constraints are leading to cutbacks in fertilizer production, as natural gas is the key ingredient for making urea, the world’s most widely used nitrogen fertilizer. Molchanov said prices for urea have increased 25% since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

“That is a big deal for the agricultural sector around the world — including the United States,” he said, warning it “will potentially translate into higher food costs in the near term.”

The global reshuffling to replace energy from Qatari LNG threatens to take a toll on the planet. Japan is currently using only about two-thirds of its 53 gigawatts of coal capacity, according to Chong. Should that country choose to tap into that capacity, millions of tons of additional carbon pollution could be released into the atmosphere within months. China has significantly more unused coal power it could tap into.

Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said as nations reassess their dependence on LNG imports some of the backsliding to coal power could become permanent.

“This will reinforce the push to generate power domestically,” she said. “It could mean more use of coal.” That could include European countries such as Germany and Poland, which are still burning coal and produce the fuel domestically.

The LNG shock may also drive extra investment into renewable energy. Some of the countries best prepared to ride out disruption to Qatari exports are those that have added the most clean energy to their power grids, Ziemba said.

China, which in recent years has installed more solar and wind power than the rest of the world combined in a drive for energy independence, is well positioned to weather a gas shortage.

France may also be able to absorb energy price shocks because of its large nuclear power capacity. And much of Europe increased its investment in solar and wind after the 2022 energy crisis on the continent precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Gas makes up just 16% of Europe’s energy mix — a sharp decrease since 2020 — and renewables now provide 47% of its power.

“This is an example of how Europe’s climate policy supports energy security,” Molchanov of Raymond James said. “Any wind farm, any solar installation in Europe is less natural gas they have to import.”

“Europe is the only major economy in the world using less natural gas today than they did a decade ago,” he said. It “has accelerated its diversification strategy to reduce dependence on natural gas no matter where it comes from — whether Russia, the U.S., or Qatar.”

While Qatar’s export freeze triggers stress around the world, American gas producers are likely to benefit.

The U.S. became the world’s largest LNG exporter in 2023. Its export terminals are currently running near maximum capacity, limiting how much additional volume the U.S. can provide to replace Qatari supplies.

But the industry may find its commercial and political prospects are now favorable to expand. “This is going to set off another LNG project boom,” said Ira Joseph, a scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “Not just in the U.S. but elsewhere.”

But he added that there may also be a new drive by countries and industries around the world to reduce dependence on LNG. “The push for using more natural gas was that it is very reliable,” Joseph said. “But in the last four years you had the largest exporter in the world — Russia — cut off its pipelines. And now, the second-largest has cut off its shipments. It raises the question of how much one wants to rely on gas imports in an energy mix.”