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.

Brendan Gibbons

January 30, 2025

In rural Texas, residents speak out against pollution from Chevron Phillips’ plastic plant expansion

During a recent public hearing on the operating permit for an expanding petrochemical complex near this tiny town southwest of Houston, local residents exhorted state officials not to approve the permit for Chevron Phillips Chemical. Neighbors are concerned about the plant’s expansion because of its poor environmental track record. The State of Texas issued 93 environmental violations to the plant over the last six years, according to state records. A proposed permit would allow the company to continue operating while it replaces a furnace and produces more ethylene—a raw ingredient in plastics and other chemicals—increasing several types of air pollution, including sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.

January 23, 2025

Trump order to fast-track LNG exports called 'political theater'

In a flurry of Inauguration Day actions to promote his “drill, baby, drill” agenda, President Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency.” He also directed the Department of Energy to restart reviews of permits for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) “as expeditiously as possible.” But experts say there is no factual basis for Trump’s “national energy emergency,” with the amount of oil and gas produced in the U.S. soaring to record-breaking volumes during the Biden Administration. And Presidential orders do not direct the actions of FERC, an independent federal agency that reviews LNG terminals.

January 16, 2025

Thousands of permits to drill on federal lands are not being used. So why 'expedite' more?

After campaigning on “Drill, Baby, Drill!” one of the first things that President-elect Trump and Republicans are expected to do when they take office next week is to accelerate the approval of permits to drill for oil and gas on federal land. But more drilling permits don’t appear to be needed. That’s because there are more than 6,000 approved permits for oil and gas companies to drill on federal lands that are available but sitting idle and not being used. Millions of acres of federal lands leased to oil and gas companies for drilling are also not being used.

Alexandra Shaykevich

January 9, 2025

Manufacturers of ammonia plan a boom in the U.S. Will it bust under Trump?

The United States is on the cusp of quadrupling its ammonia production capacity in the next five years—a move that could come with serious risks to human health and the environment. Ammonia, a chemical that is usually manufactured from natural gas, is used for synthetic fertilizers and explosives. Proponents now want to use it as a shipping fuel and to make hydrogen for clean energy. As of December 2024, 38 proposed ammonia projects across the U.S. could increase annual ammonia production capacity by over 60 million metric tons per year by 2030. That would result in a near quadrupling of the amount of ammonia production capacity in the U.S. today, from 21 million metric tons to 81 million metric tons.

Brendan Gibbons

January 2, 2025

The top Oil & Gas Watch News stories of 2024, according to readers

Oil & Gas Watch News has covered a huge variety of stories over the past year, with stories taking us from Puerto Rico to North Carolina and detailing topics as diverse as carbon capture and storage, fertilizer made from natural gas, and the EPA’s efforts to crack down on climate-polluting laughing gas. However, of all the topics covered in our 44 articles published this year, a few rose to the top as fan favorites – according to you, our readers. Here we have ranked the stories that drew the most readers to the site.