Oil and Gas Watch

February 26, 2026

Across the U.S., local governments are signing secrecy agreements over data centers, other controversial projects

Developers and local governments across the U.S. that want to avoid public debates with local residents about controversial projects – from data centers to solar farms and petrochemical plants – in recent years have increasingly employed nondisclosure agreements as a tactic to keep things quiet and out of the press until deals are complete, according to observers of the industry. For example, when local elected officials in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, began negotiating to remove an historically Black community beside the Mississippi River for a 17,000-acre industrial complex, the officials signed what amount to gag orders promising to “protect the secrecy” of the project.

Brendan Gibbons

Ten years after West Texas explosion, booming fertilizer industry poses risks to environment and public safety

At a time when the nitrogen fertilizer industry is growing rapidly across the U.S., federal records show little has been done over the last decade to prevent disasters like the 2013 explosion at a fertilizer storage facility in West, Texas, that killed 15 people. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board and others have urged the EPA to add ammonium nitrate to the list of highly hazardous chemicals that would require better disaster planning, but EPA has refused. In the 10 years since the Texas explosion, ammonium nitrate has been involved in at least 106 spills or accidental releases across the U.S., seven fires, five evacuations, and two deaths.

Brendan Gibbons

Texas lawmakers aim to exempt oil & gas projects from school property taxes, but not clean energy

Texas legislators are considering a bill that would give fossil fuel companies – but not clean energy – huge breaks on the property taxes they pay to local school districts, narrowing a previous tax incentive program for energy projects that expired last year. Under the old program, called Chapter 313, almost three quarters of the $12.3 billion in tax benefits went to manufacturing projects, including for the oil and gas and petrochemical industry, while 26 percent went to clean energy projects.

Brendan Gibbons

Permitting reform could still rise from the ashes of 'dead on arrival' House GOP energy package

With Democrats in control of the Senate and White House, most of the provisions in the energy package passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House won’t make it into law anytime soon. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats have signaled that they could be open to a narrower discussion on “permitting reform” to streamline the process of approving major energy projects such as pipelines, fuel export terminals, and electrical transmission lines.

Alexandra Shaykevich

American households could be left in the cold as gas exports skyrocket

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry is growing faster than ever. Three new projects to build or expand liquefaction capacity were announced during the first three months of 2023 alone, along with major financial milestones reached in March on another two projects. That’s on top of the 27 new or expanding LNG terminals already in the pipeline. If all these projects materialize, they would triple the sector’s liquefaction capacity to more than four times the amount that Americans used in 2022 to run gas stoves, heat and cool their homes, warm their water, and run other gas-fueled appliances.

Brendan Gibbons

West Texas home to most repeat violators detailed in illegal pollution report

An Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) report issued March 23 reveals that 17 out of the 20 worst repeat offenders in the state for air pollution released during industrial accidents or “upsets” are in the Permian Basin of West Texas, the world’s most prolific oil-producing region. Of the 17 Permian Basin sites with the worst chronic emissions, only seven of them faced fines over the six-year period studied in the EIP report.