Oil and Gas Watch

Brendan Gibbons

Even with Gulf drilling down, Trump Administration weighs expanding drilling to new coasts

The number of oil and gas drilling rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico today is about half of what it was a year ago, with 10 rigs working on June 27, compared to 19 a year earlier. In the face of this slump, the oil and gas industry is lobbying the Trump Administration to expand drilling rights into new coastal areas where it has been banned for years. These include the Atlantic Coast from the Carolinas to Florida, and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, off Florida and Alabama.

Courtney Bernhardt

October 24, 2024

Chronic failures in Texas’ management of oil & gas wells raise alarms about the state’s request to run carbon capture

With billions of dollars in incentives on the line, companies across the U.S. are planning wells intended to permanently dispose of carbon dioxide, or CO₂. In most states, the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for permitting these wells. However, the EPA has handed over that authority to three states -- North Dakota, Wyoming, and Louisiana. Texas now wants to join that list. Critics question whether the state's oil and gas regulator is fit for the job and competent enough to handle a major expansion of its authority into a new area of growth.

October 17, 2024

Leaks at Illinois carbon injection project cast a shadow on the future of taxpayer-subsidized carbon capture

An ethanol plant in central Illinois has stopped injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ground after a potential leak was discovered on the property for the second time this year. The problems at the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plant raise questions about the safety of about 150 other carbon capture wells proposed across the U.S., most with taxpayer funding.

Brendan Gibbons

October 10, 2024

In deep-red Texas, neighbors fight gas power plant next door – one of scores proposed across U.S.

Sandow Lakes Energy’s proposed plant is one of scores of new natural gas-fired power plants planned across the U.S., with the surge driven by cheap gas from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling and compounded by increased demand from artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency computer centers. In Texas alone there are currently over 150 proposed projects to build new or expand existing gas-fired power plants, according to Environmental Integrity Project research based on data from state and federal agencies. The increased burning of fossil fuels – instead of using clean energy, like solar or wind – to satisfy this growing hunger for electricity threatens U.S. climate goals.

October 3, 2024

Despite history of pollution violations, fertilizer plant receives taxpayer subsidies to expand

In late August, the U.S Department of Agriculture awarded AdvanSix Resins and Chemicals, a massive fertilizer and chemical manufacturing plant in Hopewell, Virginia, a nearly $12 million grant to increase its production of the fertilizer ingredient ammonium sulfate. The plant has a long history of environmental violations. Its expansion is part of a national boom in U.S. fertilizer production over the last decade and a half, fueled in part by hydraulic fracturing’s downward pressure on the price of natural gas, which is a primary ingredient in nitrogen fertilizer.

Brendan Gibbons

September 26, 2024

A debate over $100 billion in taxpayer subsidies could set the fate of the U.S. hydrogen industry

When hydrogen is burned, it releases only water vapor and no greenhouse gases, making it a potentially climate-friendly fuel for uses like steel production and cement manufacturing depending on how the hydrogen is made. But hydrogen is expensive to produce, which is why the Biden Administration and Congress provided up to $100 billion in taxpayer subsidies for hydrogen production in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Those proposed rules have ignited a debate over how strict those rules should be, with some energy companies lobbying for subsidies for hydrogen made from natural gas.