Brendan Gibbons
/
April 9, 2026

Billions in Venezuelan oil revenue draw Congressional scrutiny as Iran war reshapes U.S. energy strategy

Three months after U.S. special forces extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas in a nighttime raid, the Trump Administration’s handling of billions of dollars in Venezuelan oil revenue has become the subject of Congressional scrutiny. Questions are being raised as the administration scrambles to unlock Venezuelan crude to offset a fuel crisis driven by the U.S. attack on Iran. The administration last month lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s oil put in place in January 2019, during Trump’s first term.

News Briefs

April 9, 2026
Sensors showed carcinogenic benzene spikes at Texas petrochemical plant last year

An air monitor at the edge of ExxonMobil’s refinery and chemical facility in Beaumont, Texas, showed concerningly high levels of benzene twice in 2025.

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April 9, 2026
U.S. plastics industry that boomed over past decade is beginning to cool, new research shows

U.S. plastics markets slowed down in 2025, with a wave of plant closures, construction delays, and production cutbacks across the plastic industry, according to new research by the Environmental Integrity Project.

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April 9, 2026
Construction begins in Virginia on Mountain Valley Pipeline extension

The company building a controversial 31-mile natural gas pipeline extension through Virginia and North Carolina started construction last week.

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News Articles

Ari Phillips
/
April 2, 2026

Trump invokes emergency defense act to restart California oil pipeline that burst a decade ago

On March 13, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright invoked the rarely used Defense Production Act and directed Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. to restart a pipeline that caused a massive oil spill near Santa Barbara in 2015. The move to restart the pipeline represents a major development in a years-long battle over the Santa Ynez project, which includes three offshore oil platforms and the pipeline connecting them to processing facilities on land.

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Ari Phillips
/
March 26, 2026

New York denies ‘zombie’ pipeline again as Trump Admin threatens to revoke authority to block polluting projects

In late January, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation filed its opposition to the Constitution Pipeline, which would run 124 miles from the Marcellus shale gas fields in Pennsylvania to Albany, New York, where the gas would be distributed mainly to power generators across New England. Williams resuscitated the long-contested Constitution Pipeline in late 2025 a decade after New York regulators first denied the pipeline the water quality permit.

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Brendan Gibbons
/
March 19, 2026

The U.S. has never produced more oil, so why is war with Iran still spiking gasoline prices?

The Trump Administration’s war in Iran has proven that Americans are still vulnerable to shocks to Middle Eastern oil supplies, even though U.S. production is at a record high and the country has become one of the world’s largest oil exporters. Average U.S. gasoline prices rose from $2.94 on Feb. 23 to $3.72 as of March 16, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Average diesel prices shot up even more—rising more than $1 per gallon from $3.81 to $5.07 during that time.

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Ari Phillips
/
March 12, 2026

Virginia, a magnet for data centers, is hit with environmental lawsuit after approving large new gas power plant

In a state experiencing a rise in electricity demand because of a boom in data centers, Virginia’s Dominion Energy is planning to build a 944-megawatt gas-fired power plant at the site of a former coal plant in Chesterfield, just south of Richmond. Environmental groups are pushing back in court, arguing that the project violates 2020 state laws requiring renewable energy and environmental justice.

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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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