It seems the US Department of Energy has made a linguistic decision to rebrand natural gas as “freedom gas,” and refer to its chemistry as “molecules of freedom.”
In an agency press release touting the approval of a plan to increase exports of US natural gas shipped out of Texas, two Department of Energy officials offered quotes that included those zany monikers.
“Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world,” US Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes said in the release. Menezes had a long career in the energy industry before joining the Trump administration.
Just below him, Steven Winberg, also a longtime energy industry professional whose title with the Trump administration is listed as the “assistant secretary for fossil energy,” echoed his rhetoric:
“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,” Winberg said in the release.
On Monday, meanwhile, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had moved to stop its own scientists from modeling the long-term effects of climate change.