Oil and Gas Watch

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.

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.

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.

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.

Brendan Gibbons

November 13, 2025

Trump forces expensive fossil fuel plants to keep running, making consumers pay more

So far this year, the administration has ordered a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to delay retirement, as well as a plant that burns natural gas and oil in Pennsylvania, and a mainly oil-fired power plant in Maryland. For the Michigan and Pennsylvania plants, the administration broke with precedent by acting without any request by electric grid operators to keep the plants running or any warnings that the closures would cause reliability problems.

Brendan Gibbons

October 30, 2025

All U.S. LNG terminals active in 2024 violated air pollution limits over last 5 years

All seven of the LNG export terminals that were fully operational at the end of 2024 violated the Clean Air Act at least once over the last five years, according to “Terminal Trouble,” a new report released this week by the Environmental Integrity Project. Five terminals have exceeded their water pollution control permits at least once over the last five years