Oil and Gas Watch News
Brendan Gibbons
/
October 9, 2025

The oil and gas industry keeps laying off workers as Trump pushes 'drill, baby, drill!'

The record-high oil and gas production that President Donald Trump inherited when he took office has not translated to more jobs in the industry. Major oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP, are all laying off workers amid a decade-long trend of declining industry employment. Industry leaders and analysts attribute the job losses to a combination of persistently low oil and gas prices; higher supply costs, in part due to Trump’s tariffs; and consolidation in the industry, with company mergers leading to eliminating redundant positions.

News Briefs

October 8, 2025
Despite federal shutdown, Trump’s fossil fuel agenda moves forward

Even with federal agencies in shutdown mode, the administration will continue issuing permits for oil drilling, while halting activity on some renewable energy projects.

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October 8, 2025
Explosions rock two refineries in California and Texas over past week

Refineries in California and Texas have been hit with two major explosions and fires in the past week, according to news reports.

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October 8, 2025
ExxonMobil delays plans for plastics production plant on Texas coast

Citing difficult market conditions, ExxonMobil is delaying a facility that would convert a component of natural gas into chemicals used to make plastics.

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News Articles

Ari Phillips
/
October 2, 2025

Deep blue California ‘panics’ about refinery closures by allowing more drilling

As recently as a few years ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was calling on the state to ban hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas by 2024 and to consider phasing out all oil production statewide by 2045. Newsom has since pivoted to support a six-bill package of energy and climate legislation, including a bill that allows oil-rich Kern County, north of Los Angeles, to issue 2,000 new drilling permits a year without further environmental review for the next decade.

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Brendan Gibbons
/
September 25, 2025

Data show U.S. has no energy ‘emergency,’ despite Trump order directing agencies to fast-track fossil fuels

Despite heaps of evidence to the contrary, the White House issued orders on Jan. 20 claiming that the country has “insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation” and that it is “in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy.” In reality, the U.S. does not have an energy emergency, with the country's energy production and exports reaching record highs.

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Brendan Gibbons
/
September 18, 2025

Texas company plans massive power plants to fuel 'intelligence campus' named after Trump

In the panhandle of Texas, a company is planning to build a massive gas-fired power plant and four nuclear reactors to supply energy for a data center complex – all dubbed the “President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus.” The project joins a wave of companies proposing new gas-fired power plants in Texas and across the U.S.,

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Ari Phillips
/
September 11, 2025

Southwestern states struggling with drought debate the recycling of fracking wastewater

Often contaminated with carcinogens like benzene and arsenic, the water that flows back up from oil and gas extraction wells is expensive to store, hard to reuse, extremely brackish, and has caused countless headaches for both industry and nearby residents. Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are pursuing ways to make industry recycle more of its wastewater in oilfields to avoid depleting freshwater sources, as well as attempting to expand the use of this wastewater for other purpose

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In Depth Reports

The Lone Star State’s Gas Plant Boom

A wave of 130 natural gas power plant projects in the Lone Star State, proposed in part to feed the artificial intelligence boom, could release as much greenhouse gas pollution as 27 million cars and trucks driving for a year, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project.

Pollution from Oil Refineries with Outdated Boilers and Heaters

The Environmental Integrity Project examined publicly available data and records for the 20 petroleum refineries in the U.S. that reported emitting the most greenhouse gases in 2023. Out of the refinery boilers and heaters with age information, 87 percent of these units (739 of 845) are outdated.

Plastic's Toxic River

The Environmental Integrity Project examined the records of 70 U.S. facilities that make plastics or the main chemical ingredients in plastics and found they discharged almost 12 million pounds in 2023 of total nitrogen and phosphorus.

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