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pipelines
A 'Dirty Deal With Trump': Hochul Draws Fury Over Fracked Gas Pipeline Approval
"Under Gov. Hochul’s leadership, New Yorkers’ voices were silenced to appease President Trump’s fossil fuel priorities," said one critic.
Nov 07, 2025
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul came under fire Friday after her administration approved a previously rejected fracked gas pipeline over the objection of climate and conservation campaigners.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced approval of permits including a Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certification for the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline. Commonly known as the Williams Pipeline, the expansion project involves the construction of a 23.5-mile fracked gas conduit beneath the Raritan Bay and Lower New York Bay. The pipeline would carry hydraulically fractured gas from Pennsylvania across New Jersey and into New York.
“As governor, a top priority is making sure the lights and heat stay on for all New Yorkers as we face potential energy shortages downstate as soon as next summer,” Hochul said in a statement. “We need to govern in reality.”
DEC assured that it is "committed to closely monitoring the project’s construction and adherence to all permit conditions to ensure the full protection of New York’s waterways."
This, after the agency twice denied water quality certification for the same pipeline for failing to demonstrate compliance with state quality standards.
In 2020, the DEC under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is also a Democrat, denied certification for the project after finding that the proposed pipeline was likely to harm water quality by stirring up sediment and other contaminants that “would disturb sensitive habitats, including shellfish beds.”
The advocacy group New York Communities for Change noted in a fact sheet that the project "would jack up already-high utility bills" and be a "super-polluter" that would "generate about 8 million tons of additional climate-heating and asthma-inducing air pollution each year."
"The pollution would also foul our water, including stirring up toxic waste during the construction process," the group added. "The project would especially hurt people on the Rockaways, a majority African American community, where it would terminate."
BREAKING: Hochul just did Trump’s bidding by approving the massive Williams fracked gas pipeline.Hochul’s dirty deal with Trump will jack up our utility bills, pollute our air & water, and cook the climate.Join us at 3:30 outside her office 919 3rd Avenue to protest TODAY.
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 9:22 AM
However, Williams Companies, the group behind the project, filed a new application this year amid pressure from President Donald Trump for Hochul to green-light construction.
“Today’s decision by New York is a complete reversal of their two previous determinations to reject this pipeline project over threats to the state’s water resources," Mark Izeman, senior attorney for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, said in a statement Friday.
"The pipeline proposal is exactly the same, and state and federal law is the same, so there is no legal or scientific basis for taking a 180 degree turn from the state’s past denials," Izeman continued. "If built, the pipeline would tear up 23 miles of the New York-New Jersey Harbor floor; destroy marine habitats; and dredge up mercury, copper, PCBs, and other toxins."
The project "would also harm sensitive shellfish beds and fishing areas, and undercut billions of dollars New York has invested to improve water quality in the harbor," he added.
Earthjustice New York policy advocate Liz Moran said that “it is shameful that Gov. Hochul and her Department of Environmental Conservation made a decision that fails to protect New Yorkers and our precious waterways."
"We are reviewing the certificate and evaluating our options," Moran added. "The certificate application hasn’t changed since being previously rejected by the DEC, water quality standards haven’t changed—only the political context has changed, and that’s not a basis to completely reverse course.”
Sane Energy Project director Kim Fraczek also condemned the approval, asserting that "under Gov. Hochul’s leadership, New Yorkers’ voices were silenced to appease President Trump’s fossil fuel priorities."
"Hochul has made it abundantly clear that she will abdicate her responsibility as governor, violate New York’s signature climate law, dismiss the environmental and affordability struggles facing New Yorkers, and bend the knee to Trump for political expediency," Fraczek added.
Roger Downs, conservation director at the Sierra Club’s Atlantic chapter, said, "It is truly a sad day when New York leaders cave to the Trump administration and agree to build pipelines that New Yorkers do not need and cannot afford."
“This decision is an affront to clean water, energy affordability, and a stable climate," Downs added.
Food & Water Watch New York state director Laura Shindell called Hochul's approval "a betrayal of New Yorkers."
“In granting the certification for this pipeline, Gov. Hochul has not only sided with Trump, she’s fast-tracked his agenda," she continued. "Hochul has shown New Yorkers she’d prefer to do Trump’s dirty work rather than protect our waterways from pollution."
"She hasn’t kept her promises to fight against skyrocketing energy bills or the climate crisis," Shindell added. "But New Yorkers will fight Hochul’s dirty pipeline every step of the way—alongside our communities—until it is stopped for good.”
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Fighting Together for Life, Water, and Land: From Line 5 to Gaza
The deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Jul 17, 2025
In the United States, we are fighting a rapid descent into authoritarianism that is already having disastrous consequences for people, communities, and the environment. At the same time, grassroots movements across the globe are fighting to defend life, water, and land. These fights may seem worlds apart, but they are in fact intertwined at their roots. Here we will explore two examples that are not unique, but have been chosen because they make visible the underlying structural and political forces that link seemingly disparate struggles across the world. We believe that recognizing these links is necessary for building the powerful coalitions we need to resist in these critical times.
In Wisconsin, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa—a sovereign Indigenous nation—is leading a battle that resonates far beyond its borders. In coalition with local, national, and international organizations and activists, the Band is saying no to the exploitation of its land and people by fossil fuel giants; saying no to pipelines that endanger waterways, wetlands, and wild rice beds essential to their culture and survival; and saying no to fossil fuel extraction that accelerates the climate crisis.
At the heart of this struggle lies Enbridge’s Line 5—a 645-mile pipeline transporting crude oil and natural gas liquids from Wisconsin to Ontario. Line 5 does not stand alone but is linked to a much larger network of pipelines that begin in the tar sands fields of Canada and transport one of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuel. The aging Line 5 cuts directly through the Bad River Band’s reservation, but easements for this pipeline expired in 2013. Enbridge now plans to reroute the pipeline around the reservation despite years of legal battles and overwhelming public opposition. Enbridge has a well-documented history of spills and environmental destruction and, as an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, supported the violent attacks on Indigenous activists at Standing Rock. Enbridge’s reroute of Line 5 remains a direct threat to fragile ecosystems and Indigenous sovereignty.
At the same time, thousands of miles away, millions of Palestinians are being displaced and tens of thousands killed by an all-out military assault in Gaza that targets the entire population and infrastructure for life. This is accompanied by accelerating state-supported violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. The relentless bombings, mass displacement, deliberate starvation, and destruction of civilian life carried out by Israel and the U.S. against the Palestinian people amounts not to a conventional war but to genocide. The U.S. and Israel are now openly discussing a plan to permanently remove Palestinians and take over Gaza and the West Bank, completing a process of ethnic cleansing that has been ongoing for over 100 years.
What links a battle over a pipeline in Wisconsin to the crisis in Gaza and the West Bank? Everything. The fight against Line 5 isn’t merely about fossil fuels—it’s a stand against a global system of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism that drives the climate crisis. The ethnic cleansing and genocide directed at Palestinians represent the advancement of a long-term colonial project that uses violence and militarism to secure access to land and resources. In a critical moment when we face a rising tide of fascism in the U.S. and abroad, the deep connections between Line 5 and Gaza serve as a stark reminder of the urgent need for united, organized resistance to defend justice, the land, and human and nonhuman life.
Colonialism and Control: From Wisconsin to Gaza
Colonialism is about dominance and control. Whether imposed on Indigenous nations in the United States or on Palestinians abroad, its purpose is to grant powerful states and corporations unfettered access to land and resources, fueling profits and increased power for ruling elites.
In Gaza—and increasingly in the West Bank, southern Lebanon, and Syria—the brutal legacy of settler colonialism is on display. Since at least 1947, Israel has pursued colonization in Palestine, displacing native inhabitants and instituting an apartheid system to control those who remain. Military force and state-sponsored violence have systematically stripped Palestinians of their land, water, property, and freedom, a process bolstered by political, financial, and military support from Western powers. In particular, Israel is critical to strategic U.S. military and political presence in the Middle East; in other words, it is central to U.S. imperialism. The current crisis in Gaza is an escalation of this long-term project.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism.
The systems at work in Gaza are the same as those that drive projects like Line 5. The history of the U.S. is one of colonial expansion, of violently appropriating land and resources from native inhabitants and transferring it to the U.S. government and settlers. Even now, the U.S. government and powerful corporate interests ignore the rights of Indigenous sovereign nations and ram through pipelines, mines, and other projects despite their environmental and social dangers and opposition from tribes. Projects like Line 5 are a continuation of a multi-century colonial project that stretches from from the Indian Wars in the 19th century to the militarized response to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.
Whether it manifests through violent repression of protest or the displacement of entire ethnic groups, the same colonial logic is at work. Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza aims to secure access to land, water, and offshore natural gas reserves for themselves and their corporate and political allies. The same drive for control and access to resources underpins Line 5, linking these two struggles in a broader fight against colonialism, exploitation, and global corporate power.
Militarism, Capitalism, and Global Solidarity
Militarism fuels colonialism. It is also essential to the fossil fuel industry, the core driver of the climate crisis. The U.S. military extends across an estimated 750 overseas bases in 80 countries. This web of influence props up transnational fossil fuel networks that depend on protection and the threat of force to extract and transport oil and gas around the globe. The paramilitary response to activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3 in Minnesota are local examples that illustrate this relationship. The U.S. invests $800 billion into the military each year, money that could be spent on the public good but is instead used to underwrite a global system of extraction and exploitation.
The U.S. military also contributes to the climate crisis in more direct ways. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels and is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than many nations. Wars and conflict contribute significantly to carbon emissions and also drive widespread environmental devastation that destroys local livelihoods. U.S. military bases are ranked as among the most polluted in the world, damaging land and water in surrounding areas with past nuclear testing and toxic chemicals.
Militarism is also deeply intertwined with corporate interests. Big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Oshkosh Defense, and Raytheon profit from the devastation in Gaza. Such contractors are also deeply intertwined with private security firms like Blackrock. These security firms are deployed by fossil fuel companies to protect fossil fuel infrastructure projects like Line 5, harming Indigenous communities and intensifying climate collapse. In short, the U.S. military reinforces a system that prizes profit over human life.
The struggles in Gaza and against Line 5 are two sides of the same coin. Palestinians resisting occupation and Indigenous nations opposing pipelines face the same force: militarized, transnational government-corporate alliances. Their fight is not solely for their own physical and cultural survival—it is a battle for justice and freedom for all people and the planet.
Climate Chaos, Fascism, and Migration
The climate crisis is inseparable from the forces of militarism, colonialism, and capitalism. Climate change is also contributing to a related crisis—the rise of fascism and the demonization of immigrants.
As global temperatures climb, environmental disasters and unpredictability increase, contributing to economic destabilization and a general sense of uncertainty and fear. This creates an ideal breeding ground for fascist ideologies that promise greater security (for some) through the exercise of state control, brute strength, and the scapegoating of the vulnerable—all while siphoning money and power to corporations. Climate change also drives the displacement of people, as extreme heat, flooding, drought, and other environmental disasters force entire regions into unlivable conditions. In 2022 alone, over 43 million people were displaced by climate-related events, from hurricanes and floods to shifts in agricultural viability. This number is set to grow, creating an ever-growing wave of climate refugees.
Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
Rather than addressing the root causes of climate change, developing plans for adaptation that serve the public good, or offering refuge to those forced to migrate, many governments worldwide are responding with authoritarian measures. Fascist leaders paint climate refugees as threats, blaming migrants and marginalized communities for crises they did not create. In the U.S., we see this in the criminalization of immigration, mass deportation, the expansion of border walls, and the deployment of surveillance technologies—many of which were first developed in Israel and tested on Palestinians. These policies only worsen human suffering while deflecting attention from the real culprits: fossil fuel corporations, militarism, and capitalist greed.
These rising authoritarian impulses are deeply linked to the fight against Line 5 and resistance to Israel’s expansion. Indigenous and Palestinian struggles confront the same systems that aim to strengthen corporate and elite interests at the expense of everyday people and vulnerable populations, further deepening global inequality.
A Call to Action: Building Power to Fight Back
The November 2024 election and turn toward fascism in the U.S. have underscored the urgency of grassroots resistance. Corporate and right-wing forces are aligning in unprecedented ways, fueled by economic inequality, xenophobia, fear, and disinformation. Authoritarian regimes in the U.S. and abroad, including Israel, are poised to further expand corporate power, fossil fuel extraction, militarism, and state oppression in frightening ways. This convergence poses an escalating threat to human communities and the natural world.
The fight against Line 5, led by the Bad River Band, and the global solidarity movement for Palestine both stand at the forefront of grassroots resistance to these converging forces. Broadening our lens, we can see such resistance taking place all over the world: in the anti-pipeline struggles in East Africa, the efforts of Indigenous communities in the Amazon to protect their land and way of life, and the bravery of anti-mining activists in El Salvador, to name just a few examples. These movements remind us that these battles in specific places are part of a broader struggle against interconnected systems of oppression—something that has long been recognized by local communities and Indigenous-led organizations worldwide.
Our organizing must be both intersectional and international. We must connect struggles that have too often been treated in isolation. The same forces that drive the expansion of Line 5 and the attacks on Palestinian life are at work in militarized occupations and conflicts abroad, the construction of border walls and the criminalization of migrants, and the climate crisis itself. By challenging these forces at home, and acting in solidarity with those abroad, we strike at the roots of a global system of exploitation and oppression.
Climate justice movements in the U.S. must recognize not only the moral imperative but the strategic necessity of centering struggles for immigrant rights, Indigenous and Palestinian sovereignty, and struggles against militarism and fascism. We must forge alliances with diverse movements from Wisconsin to East Africa to the Philippines, recognizing that we succeed or fail together. Despite these dangerous and difficult times, a different world is possible when we unite and act as one.
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Is the Mountain Valley Pipeline Safe? We Who Live in Its Blast Zone Need Answers
If the allegations contained in a lawsuit are true, it demonstrates a willful endangerment of citizens and a gross violation of federal laws and policies.
Jun 18, 2025
In late 2014 people across West Virginia and southwest Virginia were informed that a collaboration of energy companies had created a limited liability company called Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC. The company was created to develop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile methane-gas pipeline traveling through West Virginia and Virginia mountains, farms, streams, and communities. It is most commonly called the “MVP.” It crossed my organic farm and many places where I travel, work, and play.
From the beginning there were questions about the necessity and the viability of this project. What transpired is a years-long battle to stop the pipeline. By 2022 it was apparent that the MVP was a doomed project, having gone from a price tag of $3.5 billion to over $8 billion and not being able to legally obtain critical permits. It is now projected to eventually cost nearly $10 billion.
The pipeline was rescued in 2023 by then-West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin when he held the debt ceiling legislation hostage until he got his “Dirty Deal,” inserted into the final Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. This then created a situation where degraded and corroded pipe, which had sat in the sun for years beyond the manufacturer’s recommendations, was going to be buried by MVP developers. Despite warnings from citizens, environmental, and safety experts, MVP was allowed to use much of this expired pipe.
Congress, PHMSA, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) each must conduct investigations to determine if public safety has been compromised and if officials with MVP broke federal law.
In October of 2023 citizens did get the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to issue additional safety procedures for any of the pipe remaining to be installed across West Virginia and Virginia. Meanwhile MVP was barreling full steam ahead, installing the pipe in some of the most difficult and environmentally sensitive areas of the route. They worked around the clock in sometimes brutal conditions from early June 2023 through June of 2024, despite the fact that Sen. Manchin and others said it could be completed in as little as four months. More lies and deception from those advocating for the pipeline.
Throughout this time, citizens monitoring the construction would hear rumors of shortcuts and pipeline failures like the one that happened in Bent Mountain, Virginia in May of 2024 just days before the pipeline was given the green light to enter service.
In my community of West Virginia, I heard rumors of pipeline being buried that was not properly approved by inspectors, but I heard nothing more about this after January of 2024 when MVP left my farm. That was until June 4 when I read a story by Mike Tony of the Charleston-Gazette-Mail. The story revealed that a wrongful termination lawsuit had been filed in Monroe County, where I live, in April of 2025. It was recently moved to the federal Court in nearby Bluefield, West Virginia. Subsequent stories by Laurence Hammack of The Roanoke Times and by Carlos Anchondo of E&E News have raised dire concerns among those of us who live in the blast zone of the MVP pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia.
The lawsuit alleged that a pipeline inspector was fired by MVP after refusing to sign off on pipe and/or welds he felt were unsafe. In fact, according to the filing in the Monroe County Court, he was told that if he wanted to keep his job, he was to bury the pipe. He refused, and, according to the complaint, he was transferred and later fired. In my eyes, this man is a public hero. He did his job and was fired for it. I wonder how prevalent this kind of excessive pressure is on those doing this job across the pipeline industry.
If the allegations contained in the lawsuit are true, it demonstrates a willful endangerment of citizens and a gross violation of federal laws and policies. It is imperative that this does not get swept under the rug by Mountain Valley Pipeline with some sort of out of court settlement and a nondisclosure agreement. Congress, PHMSA, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) each must conduct investigations to determine if public safety has been compromised and if officials with MVP broke federal law.
This is particularly troubling for me as I suspect that some of the pipe and welds in question are near my home or in other places where I frequent often. I also suspect this is not a situation that is isolated to just Monroe County, West Virginia. This week I will be in Washington D.C. seeking answers from FERC, PHMSA, and our elected officials.
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