In Tuesday’s editorial, we noted that the results of the 2024 could easily be understood as a referendum on Democrats’ disregard for Americans’ fears for their financial security, due in large part to inflation and the Biden administration’s unaffordable energy policies.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears to be reacting to the presidential election by doubling down on damaging policies instead: According to the international news service Bloomberg, the White House is rushing a study on the impact of liquified natural gas, commissioned as part of the White House’s January pause on developments.

The report warns the study could be used as fodder for court challenges to President-elect Donald Trump’s stated policy to unleash such developments — developments we believe could reduce the dependence of the U.S. and other free nations on resources from dictatorships while creating thousands of decent-paying jobs on our shores and in our very state.

“Negative findings in the long-awaited study could slow down new LNG projects,” the news report by Ari Natter and Ruth Liao says. “Although the Trump administration could choose to ignore the study, project operators and sponsors would face the threat and uncertainty of legal jeopardy.”

We hope the new administration is successful in promoting American energy production and that challenges based on a rushed study prompted by a policy that prematurely stymied new production is cognizant of that backwards and rushed — and subsequently highly questionable — approach. We still, however, believe American voters made it clear they expected better than to have to hope for reasonable, level-headed development.