News Briefs

The U.S. seized an oil tanker of the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Wednesday amid the administration’s escalation of tensions with the country's president.

A Guardian investigation revealed that founders of a company developing liquified natural gas projects in Louisiana bought shares following a meeting with Trump officials.

Oil and gas companies bid $279 million in the first lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since 2023, according to the Associated Press.

Executives from Ford, GM and Stellantis joined President Donald Trump at a White House event Wednesday announcing plans to weaken Biden-era efficiency standards.

The EPA made official last month its plans to delay a rule meant to reduce emissions of methane and other oil and gas industry air pollution.

A Colorado state regulatory agency on Monday finalized plans to require utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental groups are suing the administration over circumventing a bedrock federal environmental law in an upcoming lease.

Energy companies are seizing a moment of opportunity to propose three competing plans to pipe more fuel to California, according to Reuters.

A company’s proposal to store carbon dioxide under timber land in southern Alabama has drawn the opposition of farmers and local lawmakers.

The Trump Administration is considering allowing new oil leasing off the California coast for the first time since the 1980s, according to the Washington Post.

New York regulators have approved a controversial natural gas pipeline after rejecting permits for the project three times in the past.

Texas is now the sixth state to get primary authority over wells meant to store carbon dioxide underground after the EPA published a final rule this week.

Even with hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed due to the ongoing shutdown, the administration has approved hundreds of drilling permits.

On Nov. 4, voters ousted two Republican incumbents on the state’s Public Service Commission, which oversees energy utilities.

State regulators will hold a public hearing on a draft air permit proposed for a massive gas-fired power plant that will power an AI data center complex in the Texas Panhandle.

Community groups and national environmental organizations are suing the administration for giving chemical plants a break from rules meant to prevent toxic and cancer-causing pollution.

A committee of state legislators will hold a public hearing on a proposed liquified natural gas export terminal near Philadelphia.

On Oct. 7, a subsidiary of Canadian energy firm Enbridge began construction on a gas pipeline expansion across north-central Tennessee.

Citing interviews with 10 anonymous sources, Politico reported last week on tension building between President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

A state judge in Louisiana ruled that a state agency erred in its analysis of environmental impacts when it issued a permit for the Commonwealth LNG facility.

The EPA has issued final permits ExxonMobil to drill and operate three carbon injection wells in Jefferson County, Texas.

Most of the requests in a letter from 100 manufacturing groups submitted to the incoming Trump administration late last year have been granted, according to reporting by The New Lede.

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI, which requires massive amounts of energy for its data centers, has hired an official from President Donald Trump’s first administration who championed natural gas.

Responding to public pressure, Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry issued a moratorium on new applications for wells meant to store carbon dioxide from industry.

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

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

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

Two companies owned by New York-based conglomerate Loews Corporation are planning to extend new natural gas pipelines across central Mississippi.

One Texas’s largest power producers has applied to build a new power plant fueled by natural gas in rural Hood County.

Resynergi, a startup planning a facility to chemically process waste plastics in Sonoma County, California, is moving its project to another state.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright is calling for a study of oil and gas permitting and the interplay between natural gas and electric power.

Virginia regulators are planning two hearings next month on permits for a nearly 27-mile natural gas pipeline project in the state.

Flames from a ruptured natural gas pipeline in southern Wyoming illuminated the sky, creating a glow seen more than 60 miles away.

Federal regulators approved an air permit for Texas GulfLink, about 30 miles offshore from Freeport, Texas.

Federal regulators are making it easier for developers of polluting facilities to start building before they receive air quality permits.

State regulators have signed off on a proposal to drill a injection well in Southwest Louisiana to store carbon dioxide from a nearby liquified natural gas export terminal.

Cities and towns along the Gulf Coast are most at risk of health-damaging air pollution from the petrochemical industry, according to a map by Environmental Defense Fund.

The City Council of Corpus Christi earlier this month voted to cancel a contract for a seawater desalination plant meant to offset high water demand from the oil and gas industry.

A company is planning a new pipeline across Colorado’s Eastern Plains to deliver natural gas to the Colorado Springs area.

Federal regulators have reapproved a natural gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York that has been reinvigorated by President Donald Trump’s energy “emergency” order.

After raking in tax benefits that state officials said would lead to tens of thousands of new jobs and a regional boom, Shell’s CEO recently told analysts the company would sell its facility in Monaca.

As predicted in a December study by the Biden Administration, liquified natural gas exports are expected to drive up energy costs for U.S. consumers over the next year and a half.

A recent study found that air pollution from the U.S. oil and gas industry is responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths and other poor health outcomes.

North Carolina regulators will hold two public meetings on Sept. 2 and 4 regarding a proposed 28-mile gas pipeline in the northern part of the state.

A federal judge in Texas reversed a decision to add the lesser prairie chicken, whose range includes the Permian Basin of eastern New Mexico and West Texas, to the Endangered Species List.

The government of Ascension Parish is planning a relocation and buyout for residents along the Mississippi River to make room for a steel plant and at least two ammonia facilities.

New Jersey regulators will hold a hearing Sept. 10 on an application by pipeline company Williams to build a natural gas pipeline across part of Lower New York Bay.

Chemical recycling company Alterra Energy has canceled plans to build a facility near Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Nearly a third of the energy produced domestically last year was shipped abroad, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Commercial fishermen and residents of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, say a dredging project has buried their crab traps with mud and harmed wildlife.

A 71-mile natural gas pipeline expansion would cut through one of the largest undeveloped estuaries along the Atlantic Coast.

As of June 2025, Oil & Gas Watch has collected data on 39 proposed chemical recycling projects, as well as three plants that are currently under construction.

New rules meant to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas pollution from oil and gas will be delayed until January 2027.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has completed environmental reviews for two liquified natural gas terminals in South Texas.

A nonbinding pledge by the European Union to purchase hundreds of billions in U.S. energy does not make sense given the current market, analysts told news outlets.

Environmental groups recently released draft language from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office that would make it easier for oil and gas companies to get drilling permits.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold two meetings in August on plans to expand the Plaquemines LNG facility that shipped its first cargo in December.

The Trump Administration last week issued lists of chemical facilities and other polluters that it would exempt from certain air pollution rules for two years.

Multiple public interest groups challenged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week for waiving certain construction rules for natural gas projects.

The Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources proposed two draft permits for test wells for carbon storage projects near Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

A federal agency charged with pipeline safety has opened fewer cases under the Trump Administration than under any administration over the last 20 years.

At a meeting ahead of formal talks next month, U.S. officials clarified their opposition to efforts to reduce plastics production.

Two environmental nonprofits are suing Taiwanese plastics company Formosa, claiming the company is restricting access to a burial site.

Federal authorities have received an application to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal off the coast of Matagorda, Texas.

The EPA late last month opted to leave more protective air regulations in place but dropped a proposed contamination review for the chemical recycling industry.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month approved four measures meant to speed up the development of pipelines and other natural gas facilities.

A company called Coastal Bend LNG has proposed building a new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal somewhere along the Coastal Bend region of Texas.

A federal appeals court ruled June 18 that the Environmental Protection Agency acted unlawfully in declining to update water pollution control standards for seven major industries.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week denied a petition by ExxonMobil appealing a loss that requires the company to pay millions for air pollution in Texas.

Attorneys general for 16 GOP-dominated states are asking the Trump Administration to shield fossil fuel companies from lawsuits by states and environmental groups.

Federal authorities have given final authorization to Commonwealth LNG in Southwest Louisiana, while the developer of Delta LNG southeast of New Orleans withdrew its application.

Prosecutors dropped trespassing charges against four activists arrested while blocking the entrances of the New Jersey offices of a plastic company with a long record of pollution violations.

In another blow to the burgeoning U.S. hydrogen industry, BP announced it would indefinitely suspend plans to generate hydrogen at its Whiting, Indiana, refinery.

A fire that broke out at a Marathon Petroleum refinery in Texas City, Texas, was the refinery’s third since May 2023.

Environmental Protection Agency staff are being told not to enforce violations against oil and gas companies, CNN reported this week.

After reaching an all-time high in recent months, U.S. crude oil production is likely to decline through the end of next year.

The Environmental Protection Agency is poised to give Texas authority to regulate underground wells meant to permanently dispose of carbon dioxide.

An environmental group sued a school district over requirements to notify the public about its negotiations over tax breaks for one of the world’s largest oil companies.

The administration would slash the budget of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which releases public reports on fires, explosions, and other catastrophes.

The Trump Administration is planning to revoke a 2024 rule that restricted oil and gas drilling on 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in the Alaskan Arctic.

Trump on Monday nominated Laura Swett, litigation counsel at the law firm Vinson & Elkins, which represents fossil fuel companies.

Federal authorities have approved the use of underground formations below public land to store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The bill would require operators to plug oil and gas wells that have been inactive for at least 15 years.

The owner of an 82-year-old oil well that sprayed oily water into a Louisiana coastal marsh will permanently seal the structure.

Though the Trump Administration has sought to expand drilling and leasing for fossil fuels in the Gulf of Mexico, production is flat and the number of drillships is at a seven-year low.

After a 10-year shutdown following a 2015 spill that fouled 150 miles of coastline, a Texas company restarted offshore oil production last week.

Researchers at Colorado State University identified much higher levels of benzene and other toxins in the air near a well blowout site north of Fort Collins than initially reported.

A chemical plant in the heart of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” has put production on hold because of poor financial results.

The Iowa Senate this week narrowly approved a bill that would make it more difficult to for companies to force landowners to accept carbon dioxide pipelines.

House Republicans are looking to slash funding for clean energy programs, including tax credits for buying electric vehicles.

President Donald Trump’s Federal Trade Commission chair has moved to cancel restrictions on two oil company executives accused of working with foreign governments to raise oil prices.

The pipeline's developers are seeking a permit to disturb 17 acres of wetlands as part of a plan to extend the pipeline from southern Virginia to northern North Carolina.

A planned facility to produce a blend called synthesis gas, or “syngas,” from natural gas in Texas City, Texas, has been cancelled.

During a visit to Poland this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright predicted that shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe would continue to rise.

During a meeting with state officials in Austin Tuesday, the EPA’s regional chief signaled that the agency would hand over authority on regulating wells that store carbon dioxide.

A proposed hydrogen pipeline that could stretch over 200 miles and cross through Navajo Nation territory is drawing scrutiny from skeptics and at least one Navajo advocacy group.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is encountering opposition from Louisiana republican lawmakers, a group that is typically favorable to oil and gas industry interests.

The White House has asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Willie Phillips, a Democrat, to resign from the position. Phillips’ departure is “effective immediately."

Following the Trump Administration’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda and National Energy Emergency declaration, the Department of the Interior announced it will enact “emergency permitting procedures”to reduce time periods for environmental reviews.

President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Justice to stop enforcing state laws that would impose billions of fines on energy companies for destabilizing the climate.