Controversial Constitution Pipeline Project in New York Is About to Be Revived

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Developers of two left-for-dead natural-gas pipeline projects in New York are preparing to file permitting paperwork with federal energy regulators to move forward with the projects, according to people familiar with the matter.

Pipeline company Williams is set to try again to build the Constitution and Northeast Supply Enhancement pipelines, which would shuttle natural gas from Appalachian gas fields throughout the Northeast.

The resurrection follows President Trump’s decision last week to reverse his April stop-work order on a major wind project off the state’s coast and suggests horse-trading between Trump and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. They spoke by phone earlier this month in a bid to save one of the signature economic development projects of her administration and deliver a promise Trump has made to bring back the dormant pipeline project.

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Trump has fixated on the Constitution Pipeline, first proposed in 2012 as a 124-mile line to move gas from Appalachia’s shale fields in to New York and New England. The Northeast’s businesses and residents face some of the country’s highest energy costs, despite being on the doorstep of what has become the world’s most prolific gas field, because of limited capacity to deliver fuel into dense coastal cities.

Constitution’s developer, Williams, pulled the plug in 2020 after years in court fighting New York environmental regulators, who refused to issue a crucial water-quality permit.

Williams is also filing paperwork to revive its less memorably named Northeast Supply Enhancement project, which would expand its existing supply lines that run beneath New York Harbor and into the city. Williams stopped pursuing the embattled project last year, seven years after it started.

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Hochul made no deal with Trump regarding specific pipelines when she convinced the president to reverse course on the Empire Wind energy project, a spokesman for the governor said.

Yet the governor hasn’t taken the same hard line on natural gas as her predecessor Andrew Cuomo. Her administration earlier this year approved permits to expand a gas pipeline that serves the state.

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It isn’t clear if other scuttled pipeline projects will return. Buffalo’s National Fuel Gas last year abandoned plans for its Northern Access project a decade after it first proposed a 97-mile pipeline to bring Pennsylvania shale gas to western New York.

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Should be good news and hopefully soon some cost relief from natural gas consumers in the NE region. The graph posted in the article (sorry, don’t know how to post it here) shows that while the current U.S. average for residential retail natural gas is just over $14/mcf, the New England average is over $20/mcf.