September 3, 2026 (IEEFA) – Petrochemical host cities across Texas were expecting economic booms but are instead experiencing blight, health issues, and devalued property. According to the latest Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) report, promised jobs and economic prosperity have failed to materialize in correlation with the wave of petrochemical expansion the industry has experienced over the last 15 years.

Two centuries after the coal miners arrived, residents are racing to save the stream and bring back the trout.

The secrecy involved with data center non-disclosure agreements is a major reason many Ohioans are rightly suspicious of them.

In a rural county south of Columbus, Ohio, a company specializing in on-site power generation for data centers is facing pushback from critics who warn of air pollution from its latest natural gas-fired project. One state to the east, advocacy groups are challenging an air quality permit that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued in November 2025 for the 4.4-gigawatt Homer

State lawmakers are hoping to strengthen energy efficiency standards for appliances at the same time federal policymakers are trying to weaken them.

In a recent survey, most economists said Ohio's tax abatements are an effective way to attract AI data centers to the Buckeye State, but many also questioned the desirability of doing so.

Chemical companies that are major U.S. plastics manufacturers – including Dow, Westlake, and Eastman – have said they are trimming their workforces by thousands of employees this year. All three of these petrochemical companies are laying off workers even as profits are up. Executies and stockholders are doing well while they terminate their workers, in part because technology allows companies to produce more chemicals with fewer employees.

Residents of the Westmoreland County township worry about the data center’s potential noise, water use and impact on electricity rates.

Around Ohio, utility bills are climbing and the strain families are feeling could help decide November’s election. To voters, utility bills are a straightforward problem: higher is bad. Although that…

Bills in the state House and Senate propose new standards for 15 commercial appliances and household water fixtures.

West Virginia's interim state legislative session from Sept. 13 to Sept. 15, 2026 offered evidence of concealment liabilities and a lack of transparency throughout state government – on hotly contested data centers and beyond. Coinciding with the session was a protest of controversial House Bill 2014, and the session featured audit reports highlighting transparency and operational failures throughout state government.

A federal chemical safety agency concluded that Shell had inadequate safety and training measures that led to an explosion at the company’s Beaver County ethane cracker on June 4, 2025.

Nearly 3,000 acres of Ohio’s only national forest were leased for more than $11 million by the Bureau of Land Management for fracking.

Shell was fined $15 million for more than two dozen visible emissions violations at its Western Pennsylvania chemical plant.

Foreword Imagine union membership tripling in the United States. It may sound radical—if you’ve forgotten history. In fact, more than 1 in 3 private-sector workers belonged to a union in the 1950s. The results? Wages grew in tandem with the economy. The middle class thrived. Black-white wage gaps shrank. Broadly shared economic growth was a…

Our state's homes are built above a hundred years of drilling by an industry that was never made to clean up after itself.

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing a rule that’ll drastically weaken restrictions on “stripper wells,” which tend to be old, poorly maintained and prone to leaking methane, the highly potent greenhouse gas.

The Marcellus Shale is the most productive gas basin in the country. But after two decades of drilling, gas-focused counties in Appalachia continue to see stagnant job growth and depopulation, accordi...

Summer is nearing an end, but things continue to heat up in global energy markets.

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The solar-plus-storage project faced no opposition despite growing pushback to clean energy in the state — likely because of its brownfield location.

Highly toxic wastewater from America’s fracking boom is buried in deep underground wells. But in some places that toxic waste is bubbling upwards -- threatening local drinking water. How Marietta, Ohio is trying to fight fracking waste.

The federal government estimates that wind and solar will supply 93.7% of the increase in electricity generation through 2027.

The disposal of toxic and radioactive oil and gas waste brine has improved dramatically over the centuries of oil and gas extraction. Before oil and gas waste disposal saw any type of regulations, it ...

“You ain’t men to that coal company. You’re equipment, like a shovel, a gondola car, or a hunk of wood brace. They’ll use you ‘til you wear out or you

The federal government estimates that wind and solar will supply 93.7% of the increase in electricity generation through 2027.

Anthropic PBC has agreed to spend $45 billion to rent AI cloud computing power from Nscale’s flagship data center development in West Virginia, the latest move in an effort to secure capacity for its expanding business in advance of going public.

A troubling trend has shown up in some communities around the U.S.: Public officials are being inundated with seemingly fake public feedback that aims to block renewable energy and promote fossil fuels.

President Trump and federal agencies have used subsidies, tariffs and other deals to prop up purchases of LNG, with long-lasting consequences.

Shell has drawn interest from potential bidders including ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell for its multibillion-dollar US chemicals assets, as the...

The Kentucky legislature in 2025 passed a law giving massive tax breaks to companies building data centers across the state, but Beshear wants those rolled back.

The Marcellus Shale is the most productive gas basin in the country. But after two decades of drilling, gas-focused counties in Appalachia continue to see stagnant job growth and depopulation, according to a new report.

There’s no clearer sign of the data center boom than rampant gas projects that have been proposed or that are already under construction.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has approved a permit for a planned industrial facility whose projected environmental health impacts and murky economic outlook have sparked fear among Kanawha Valley residents. The DEP on Aug. 12, 2026 approved an air quality permit for Clean-Seas West Virginia, Inc. to build a facility at which to convert plastics into other products near Belle with a planned fence line fewer than 500 feet from the entrance to Riverside High School. The DEP set aside rampant resident concerns that the Clean-Seas project will harm public health where...