August 7, 2012. Lawmakers ratcheted up pressure on the Obama administration to speed approval for companies to export natural gas, arguing it would help relieve a glut dampening output of the fuel. The Department of Energy, or DOE, "does not seem to have a set timeline for decisions or a sense of urgency," about approving exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, lawmakers said in a letter to Energy Secretary. "Our region and our country need an outlet for natural gas production," they said in a letter signed by 44 House lawmakers from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, 10 of whom were Democrats. The U.S. natural gas surplus "has produced very low prices for producers and an absence of market opportunities for natural gas, leading many wells to be shut in," the letter said. It was the second real push from Capitol Hill in support of LNG exports after a group of lawmakers from states rich in shale gas wrote Chu in late June. The U.S. natural gas revolution, spurred by wide development of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, directional drilling and other technologies, has brought with it a push to build export terminals to send the fuel to markets in Asia and Europe where prices for gas are far higher. The Department of Energy or DOE is allowed to quickly approve applications to export gas to South Korea, Chile and more than a dozen other countries that have free-trade agreements with the United States. Applications for exports to countries that do not have the agreements with Washington require a more thorough process. The department has only approved full export rights for one project, Cheniere Energy Inc's Sabine Pass, terminal. The department said it would wait on the results from a study of implications of exports on the U.S. economy before acting on eight other applications from Dominion Resources Inc and other companies.