The Hill: Green groups: Russia-fueled push for natural gas exports will fade

Green groups say they’re confident the push to expand U.S. natural gas exports will fade as attention moves away from Russia’s clash with the West over Ukraine.

The fight has brought new attention to Russia’s use of its natural gas reserves as political leverage over Europe, and has fueled GOP arguments that the U.S. should step up its efforts to export its own natural gas as an answer to Moscow.

But environmental groups insist the push won’t give new life to longstanding arguments from oil companies that want to see an expansion of exports and of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”

“This will have a limited life,” predicted Gabe Wisniewski, who leads Greenpeace’s energy campaign.

“This is a momentary episode of more rhetoric than fact,” said Mike Tidwell, president of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.  MORE