The decision by the Trump administration this week to lift a stop order on the offshore wind farm in New York raised a possibility that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul might have changed her mind about allowing more natural gas into her state. And that could be good news for Williams in Tulsa which has been thwarted for years to expand its natural gas pipelines into New York state. Or maybe not.
Williams hasn’t commented publicly since this week’s announcement that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum reversed his decision because he was encouraged by Hochul’s “willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity.”
“Americans who live in New York and New England would see significant economic benefits and lower utility costs from increased access to reliable, affordable, clean American natural gas,” the Interior Secretary said in a post on social media platform X reported CNBC.
“We’re not gonna go putting our neck out until they invite us with the red carpet rolled out,” Armstrong told Barron’s during an interview at the CERAWeek conference in Houston. His comments came after President Trump publicly encouraged construction of the Constitution natural gas pipeline to carry natural gas to New York and other New England states to give them lower electricity costs.
Armstrong at the time explained Williams had already suffered losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in two failed pipeline into the Northeast over the past ten years. The Constitution pipeline was one of them and had it been built, would have supplied natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York. But New York denied water quality permits to Williams in 2020 and Armstrong suggested New York has lost major data centers because it lacks natural gas for cheaper electricity.
“We have so much more demand for gas to the south, so many more projects, that we’re not gonna stick our neck out” to try to invest in the Northeast, he remarked in the Barron’s interview.
Now, it appears to be a wait and see game for all involved. Whether Gov. Hochul will finally relent and open the doors for pipeline expansion into her state is unknown. As CNBC reported, the governor did not mention natural gas in her statement responding to the Trump administration’s latest decision. But she “reaffirmed that New York will work with the Administration and private entities on new energy projects that meet the legal requirements” under state law.
“In order to ensure reliability and affordability for consumers, we will be working in earnest to deliver on these objectives,” she added in a statement from her office. ““New York’s economic future is going to be powered by abundant, clean energy that helps our homes and businesses thrive. I fought to save clean energy jobs in New York — and we got it done.”
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