Sixteen Republican-led states, including Louisiana and Texas, have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to reverse the Biden administration’s suspension of LNG export project approvals and force it to resume reviewing applications.

“This ban disregards statutory mandates, flouts the normal regulatory process, upends the industry, disrupts Plaintiffs’ economies, and subverts our constitutional structure,” the states said in the lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. “These unlawful actions leave Plaintiffs with no choice but to once more turn to the courts to enforce the law.”

The states argue that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which approves liquefied natural gas exports, found in July that “there is no factual...