Oil and Gas Watch News
Brendan Gibbons
/
January 8, 2026

The top Oil & Gas Watch News stories of 2025, according to readers

In 2025, Oil & Gas Watch News chronicled the first year of President Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill,” agenda, and many of our most popular articles examined the reality behind the rhetoric of his energy promises. Other top stories of 2025 covered massive but little-known energy projects in Alaska and Louisiana, as well as on federal public lands across the West.

News Briefs

January 7, 2026
Trump officials outline plan in Venezuela to ‘take all the oil’

Top Trump Cabinet members on Wednesday sketched out the goals to control oil sales out of Venezuela, following the abduction of the country’s president last week.

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January 7, 2026
Pipeline company fined $9.6 million for oil spill into Gulf

The U.S. Department of Transportation on Monday announced a civil penalty against a pipeline company for a massive 2023 oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.

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January 7, 2026
Company suspends plans for LNG export terminal in Southwest Louisiana

Pipeline company Energy Transfer announced in December that it would hold off on developing its Lake Charles LNG project.

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News Articles

Brendan Gibbons
/
December 18, 2025

Taxpayer-subsidized carbon capture is driving a backlash in Louisiana, Texas and other states

Driven by billions in taxpayer subsidies, companies are planning hundreds of projects across the U.S. intended to capture carbon dioxide emissions from industry and pump the pollution underground. The wave of carbon capture, transportation, and storage projects is triggering backlash in the form of lawsuits, grassroots activism, and regulatory changes. States in the Gulf Coast and Midwest have had public debates and court battles over some of these projects. 

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Ari Phillips
/
December 11, 2025

Trump Administration proposes gutting Endangered Species Act to boost energy industry

The Trump Administration recently announced its intention to revoke protections under the Endangered Species Act and allow federal agencies to greenlight destructive mining and drilling projects without studying their impact on the habitat of threatened and endangered species. This proposal comes at a time when the Trump Administration is also aggressively pushing to open up oil and gas drilling in places where it hasn’t been permitted for decades.

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Brendan Gibbons
/
December 4, 2025

In refinery town near Chicago, cancer concerns lead to calls for better air monitoring

A group of residents of Lemont, Illinois, and surrounding communities are concerned about cancer and other illnesses, with state public health data showing a a growth cancer cases. After finding data that show occasional spikes of carcinogenic benzene emissions from a nearby Citgo refinery, they are asking for real-time air monitoring and an alert system.

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Ari Phillips
/
November 20, 2025

Trump wants to revoke a drilling ban around a cherished World Heritage Site

The Trump Administration recently announced that it plans to abolish a Biden-era federal ban on oil and gas drilling within 10 miles of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northern New Mexico, home to a large concentration of Indigenous ruins. The announcement is part of the Trump Administration’s broader “drill, baby, drill” agenda of rolling back drilling and mining restrictions on the federal government’s vast land holdings as it aims to boost fossil fuel production.

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Videos

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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