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Brendan Gibbons
/
June 25, 2026

Texas’s orphaned well count continues to grow, contaminating land and water and hurting taxpayers

As of April 2026, the number of orphaned wells – which are abandoned wells with no known or financially-solvent owners – increased by 37 percent compared to last year, reaching over 12,000 wells. The number of orphaned wells continues to grow as older wells are sold off to increasingly smaller companies with fewer resources that sometimes fail to plug their wells or go out of business. Current regulations also allow companies to postpone plugging their wells indefinitely.

News Briefs

June 25, 2026
Company plans massive gas power plant for data center south of San Angelo, Texas

A company planning data centers for artificial intelligence across the U.S. and Canada is seeking a permit for a gas-fired power plant to supply a planned data center in central Texas.

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June 25, 2026
After tie vote, Colorado town narrowly approves sale of oil and gas drilling rights

After a deadlocked vote last week on a proposal in Erie, Colorado, to sell the town’s mineral rights for drilling, council members narrowly approved the deal on Tuesday.

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June 25, 2026
Trump Administration plans to resume leasing federal land in Central California for oil and gas

After a four-year hiatus, the Bureau of Land Management intends to resume leasing blocks of federal land in south-central California for oil and gas drilling.

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News Articles

Ari Phillips
/
June 18, 2026

The Iran war has helped U.S. plastics manufacturers while hurting consumers

President Donald Trump on June 17 signed a preliminary agreement that could potentially end the conflict, but it’s not clear the deal will hold and global disruption is likely to reverberate for months even after the war eventually ends. The war has boosted profits for plastics manufacturers while adding to the costs faced by consumers already battered by rising costs. The wartime closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where about $20 to $25 billion ‌worth of petrochemical products pass through annually, sent prices for polyethylene and other plastic ingredients soaring.

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Brendan Gibbons
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June 11, 2026

Trump Administration proposes allowing companies to start building industrial plants without air permits

Under the federal Clean Air Act, power plants and other potential sources of pollution must apply to state or federal environmental agencies and receive what is called a “preconstruction permit” before they roll in the cement mixers. But on May 13, the administration proposed making it legal for companies to begin construction on new projects – including data centers, power plants, and other major manufacturing facilities like steel mills, chemical plants, and liquefied natural gas terminals – before they even receive permits that authorize the project.

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Brendan Gibbons
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June 4, 2026

Trump officials mislead on fertilizer price relief in effort to ram through Louisiana ammonia plant

With farmers suffering from high global fertilizer prices due to the war in Iran, Trump Administration officials held a press conference May 19 unveiling their plan to speed up permitting for a Louisiana facility they said would help provide economic relief for the American agricultural community. The only problem? The majority of the ammonia manufactured from natural gas at the proposed Blue Point Complex near Donaldsonville will not be used to make fertilizer, but rather to ship to overseas customers and as a fuel for a power plant and a steel factory, according to corporate disclosures and announcements.

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Ari Phillips
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May 28, 2026

Massive New Mexico data center tries to ‘greenwash’ environmental impact with fuel cell proposal

One major AI data center battle is currently playing out in the small border town of Santa Teresa, in Dona Ana County of New Mexico, where road construction and ground clearing at the massive Project Jupiter AI data center began last fall. Developed by BorderPlex Digital Assets, the complex will be powered by a self-contained power system separate from the state’s main electricity grid used by the public.

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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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