A gas pipeline championed by President Donald Trump cleared permitting hurdles in New York and New Jersey, reflecting a political shift.
Shale gas producers have complained for years that New York’s resistance to pipelines amounts to an “energy blockade.” But on Friday, one project got through.
The state’s environmental regulators gave their blessing, in the form of a water quality certification, to a New York city-area pipeline. New Jersey joined in, clearing hurdles for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project, or NESE, that seemed insurmountable just a year ago.
The decision follows President Donald Trump’s strong-arm tactics to force New York to accept new fossil fuel infrastructure. Trump has claimed that Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to consider new gas pipelines in return for him lifting his administration’s unprecedented halt on an under-construction offshore wind project. Hochul, however, has denied there was a deal, casting her administration’s approval as pragmatism — “making sure the lights and heat stay on.”
Still, Hochul said Friday that Trump’s hostility to renewable energy is part of the reason why New York needs an “all-of-the-above” approach that includes fossil fuels along with nuclear power.
“We are facing a war against clean energy from Washington Republicans,” Hochul said in an emailed statement. “And while I have expressed an openness to natural gas, I have also been crystal clear that all proposed projects must be reviewed impartially by the required agencies to determine compliance with state and federal laws.”
White House officials said the NESE project will create jobs, keep the lights on and keep New Yorkers warm, and they cast it as a hand extended across the country’s partisan divide.
“As promised, President Trump is unleashing American energy dominance across the country — even in Blue states like New York — because he is a President for all Americans,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “President Trump is restoring our energy dominance by building beautiful pipelines.”
Jim Welty, president of Marcellus Shale Coalition, said Friday’s progress on NESE is “an important step in beginning to lift the energy blockade” that he said hurt consumers.
But “more must be done to build additional pipelines that connect the energy-hungry regions with Pennsylvania’s natural gas abundance,” said Welty, whose group represents shale gas producers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Friday’s double approval by New York and New Jersey is a huge step forward for NESE. But it doesn’t guarantee the project’s completion — nor necessarily serve as a harbinger of more Northeast fossil fuel projects.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, along with other groups, is already challenging federal moves supporting the project and said Friday it will be also challenging state approval in federal court. And Williams Cos., the developer behind NESE, has withdrawn its water permit application for a second Northeast pipeline project, the 124-mile Constitution pipeline. The company plans to follow up with additional filings.
But NESE’s progress is a sign that Democratic governors in the Northeast might reduce their resistance to new natural gas infrastructure in the face of rising energy costs. In her statement, Hochul stressed “affordability,” the buzzword Democrats repeated as they rode to victory in last week’s elections in New Jersey and elsewhere. Williams released a statement from company CEO Chad Zamarin that emphasized the point.
“There is increasing recognition that energy affordability directly impacts everyday affordability,” said Zamarin. “Expanding natural gas infrastructure is vital to lowering costs and increasing economic opportunity, and the NESE and Constitution projects are important to connecting energy to opportunity in the Northeast.”
NESE would add a 24-mile pipeline running underwater from New Jersey into New York. It would be added to Williams’ 10,000-mile Transcontinental system that connects the New York metro area to Gulf states. New Jersey would host three miles of onshore pipe. Williams has said it hopes to put NESE into operation by the end of 2027.
The project seemed dead in 2024, with Williams canceling it after state-level permit denials. But it reemerged this year amid the Trump administration’s focus on fossil fuels and push for new pipelines. In late August, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reissued a certificate to the project, rejecting commenters’ request for a longer comment period.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued several permits for NESE on Friday, including a water quality certificate and coastal wetlands permit. Also on Friday, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued the water quality certification, along with a wastewater discharge permit.
‘A 180-degree turn’
Environmentalists have accused Hochul of putting her thumb on the scale in favor of NESE’s approval and asserted that the state’s reversal is the result of a “tawdry political shakedown” of Hochul by Trump.
“Both states have taken a 180-degree turn. It’s fair to ask what’s happened,” Mark Izeman, senior strategist for environmental health at NRDC, said in an interview. “The only thing that’s changed is pressure from the White House and the oil and gas industry.”
After canceling NESE last year, Williams made no move to revive its dormant Northeast pipeline projects until Trump temporarily shut down Empire Wind 1, an offshore wind project under construction off New York. Trump relented after about a month, with administration officials suggesting that Hochul was newly receptive to pipeline projects. Hochul maintained that she was already open to them and that she’d pushed Trump to consider the 1,500 jobs on the line.
On Friday, Hochul contrasted the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s approval of NESE’s permit with its handling of Constitution’s permit application.
“DEC used that same standard for the proposed Constitution pipeline project and found it did not meet the bar for completeness to advance and the application was subsequently withdrawn,” she said in her statement.
Williams officials said the company will continue working to get approval of Constitution with new regulatory filings. But industry analysts have opined that Constitution is the less viable of the two projects.
Environmentalists say building the NESE pipeline would destroy marine habitat; dredge up mercury, copper, PCBs and other toxins; and damage sensitive shellfish beds and fishing areas. That, they say, would undermine billions of dollars that the two states have put into improving water quality in the harbor.
Andrew Cuomo, Hochul’s predecessor as governor, had refused to grant Williams the needed water permits for both NESE and Constitution, and Williams pulled the plug on both projects after years of wrangling.
The projects also faced opposition from several of Hochul’s fellow Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — who beat Cuomo in last week’s election — also opposed the project.
New Jersey had also previously rejected the NESE pipeline under outgoing Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy. Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, one of the Democrats who rode the “affordability” theme to victory last week, criticized NESE, saying it “does nothing to lower electric bills for New Jersey residents.”
In an emailed statement, Sherill outlined no specific plan to fight the pipeline. She said she plans to declare a “state of emergency on utility costs” that involves renewable and nuclear energy along with “modernizing natural gas infrastructure.”
Shawn LaTourette, New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, said in an interview that Williams had made important changes to comply with the state’s environmental laws, such as reducing the effect on wetlands of a planned compressor station.
“The thing that is different about this go round of this application before DEP, is not the Trump administration. It is not the change in any political alignment,” he said. “They’ve met the letter of our regulations.”
