Transatlantic Bridge Award

As part of the European Union’s annual Europe Day celebrations, the Delegation of the European Union to the United States honors a small number of Americans “who have greatly contributed to the transatlantic relationship.” The celebration is held at the EU Ambassador’s residence in early May. During the 07 May 2025 ceremony, H.E. Jovita Neliupšienė, the EU’s Ambassador to the United States of America, presented one of the four 2025 Transatlantic Bridge Awards to Fred H. Hutchison, LNG Allies Founder, President, and CEO.

Acceptance Remarks

Thank you, Madam Ambassador, for this tremendous honor. I am humbled beyond belief. Ačiū—thank you in Lithuanian!

Excellencies, friends, family, and guests: I stand before you today as someone who began life on a farm in Mud Lake, Idaho. My father raised alfalfa and oats, and my mother taught American history and physical education.

I spent evenings in a drafty log barn, wrangling Holstein cows and temperamental old milking equipment. During haying season, I drove the stacker-wagon, methodically bringing in the harvest. As you might imagine… I loved every minute of it…

Fortunately, I was blessed with parents who placed education at the heart of our household, showing me that intellectual curiosity could take me beyond rural boundaries.

My journey was further shaped by my Great Uncle Raymond Stevens, who helped build the world’s first management consulting firm at Arthur D. Little and embodied the generosity of spirit I strive to carry forward.

Uncle Ray was a member of MIT’s Class of 1917 and encouraged me to follow in his footsteps. As he once said about why he led ADL to expand internationally in the 1950s, “We are quite willing to reform the world, but we insist on being realistic about everything we do.” That balance has guided my own life.

Friends, I literally owe this award to my beautiful and talented wife, Helen. In 2013, she reminded me that we used to enjoy the MIT Club of Washington embassy events.

And so we went to an event at the Embassy of Lithuania, where I met Simonas Šatūnas, who told us how Lithuania had decided to break free from Gazprom’s energy stranglehold with a floating regasification ship christened “Independence!”

Simonas said that the Baltic States wanted to buy liquefied natural gas from the United States but it wasn’t clear if the U.S. Department of Energy would grant any more LNG export licenses. Having spent 33 years as an independent lobbyist… I recognized a potential assignment when it sailed up to my dock.

LNG Allies was launched in February 2014 as an informal coalition, uniting America’s natural gas producers and potential European customers. When Russia seized Crimea that month, the energy security situation in Europe was dire, with many EU States wholly dependent upon Russian gas.

What began as a modest effort to help secure USLNG export licenses has become a decade-long mission to build out the USLNG industry, strengthen European energy security, and lift people out of energy poverty around the world.

Today, I stand before you humbled by what Americans and Europeans have accomplished together—eight major USLNG export facilities (with four more under construction), new LNG terminals across Europe, expanded pipeline interconnections, and a continent better shielded from energy coercion.

As Senator Frank Church, my first boss out of college, once told me: “Bridges connect not just places, but people.” The transatlantic bond we’ve built represents our shared commitment to freedom, security, and mutual prosperity.

Let me close with these commitments to our friends in the European Union… Take note:

First, America will never, ever use energy as a weapon.

Second, we will honor our energy security commitments to you and our global partners.

Third, American natural gas will be there when you need it.

Thank you for this tremendous honor—it is the honor of my lifetime, but my lifetime has been enriched by the honor of working with you.