Oil and Gas Watch

October 16, 2025

Trump cancels billions in clean energy grants while increasing subsidies for oil and gas

On Oct. 2, the Trump Department of Energy announced it was cancelling over $7.5 billion in federal funding for 223 clean energy projects that the administration argues would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The projects are mostly in states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. But President Trump’s own landmark legislation signed in July, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” grants an additional $4 billion a year in new taxpayer subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

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.

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.

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.

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.,

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