Industry looks for administration, Congress to cement pro-fossil fuel agenda

After a striking shift toward a pro-fossil fuel national agenda in 2025, US oil and natural gas industry leaders are eager to see regulatory agencies and Congress move forward in 2026 to make the changes permanent and durable.

“There was a lot of activity in 2025” to support the oil and gas industry, Amy Andryszak, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association (INGAA), told Oil & Gas Journal. “The president and agencies teed up a lot of rules” that could see final action this year, she said.

American Petroleum Institute (API) president Mike Sommers noted that the industry is particularly watching the Interior Department's 5-year plan for federal oil and gas leasing, finalization of new access to offshore and onshore federal lands, and several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiatives designed to rollback climate change regulations.

EPA

EPA’s expected repeal of the Endangerment Finding, a 2009 determination by the EPA that greenhouse gases threaten public health, is one of the most significant actions expected, Sommers said.

The finding underpins federal regulations to curb carbon dioxide and methane emissions. It could lead to the administration rescinding the EPA tailpipe rule, limiting carbon emissions from cars and trucks, and even the Corporate Average Fuel Economy program, established in 1975, to reduce US oil consumption by increasing vehicle fuel efficiency, Sommers explained.

EPA sent the Endangerment Finding rule to the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Jan. 7, 2026, and repeal is expected imminently. Environmental advocates and some states have vowed to file lawsuits if the finding is scrapped.

If finalized, the repeal would strip EPA of the power to require greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts from cars and trucks, power plants, as well as oil and gas infrastructure. It could prevent future administrations from regulating GHGs without new legislation from Congress.

Concurrent with its bid to repeal the Endangerment Finding, the administration last year targeted several existing GHG rules that should see final action in 2026, INGAA’s Andryszak said.

EPA in 2025 began “reconsideration” of the Quad O regulations of the Clean Air Act. Those regulations limit methane emissions from the oil and gas sector through leak detection and repair criteria and emission reduction requirements for new, modified, and existing sources like well sites and compressor stations, she said.

Edith Naegele, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), said alterations to the Quad O rules are particularly important to small producers. “We hope the rules will better reflect the [economic] realities of low-production (marginal) wells,” she said. 

EPA is also reconsidering industry GHG reporting requirements. In September, the agency proposed halting industry reporting for primary segments of the rule, including production, processing, and transmission, until 2034.

EPA will also finalize reforms this year to the Clean Water Act section 401, which allows states to block federal permits for pipelines and other infrastructure over local water issues. The changes would limit state reviews to water quality-related impacts and restrict the scope of review from the activity as a whole to water-discharge only.

The administration is also making and codifying significant changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the federal regulations that agencies follow while evaluating a proposed project’s impact on the environment.

Congress

NEPA reforms are at the core of permitting-reform legislation before Congress. The oil and gas sector, most Republicans, and many Democrats believe reform is essential to allow the development of LNG plants, fossil energy projects, pipelines, power lines, and other infrastructure, such as roads and bridges.

Permitting reform is a “solution to a lot of the problems facing energy projects,” and it will provide the certainty needed for industry investment, National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) president Erik Milito told OGJ.

“The permitting system is broken,” added API’s Sommers. Reforms are needed to ensure that the US can meet rising oil and gas demand and remain competitive with China in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, he noted. 

The US House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act Dec. 19, 2025, to simplify permitting by reducing duplicative, multiagency reviews, establishing firm timelines for agency reviews, and updating NEPA processes, critical industry-advocated reforms.

The bill in many ways codifies a 2025 US Supreme Court decision in the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Co., that narrowed the scope of NEPA review.

The ruling and the House legislation allow agencies to restrict their environmental analysis to the project itself, not the upstream and downstream impacts of development, Dan Naatz, chief operating officer and executive vice-president of the Independent Producers Association of America (IPAA), told OGJ.

The permitting legislation also addresses “judicial restraint” by requiring courts to defer to an agency's expertise in technical, environmental, and scientific analysis and imposes a 150-day statute of limitations on lawsuits.

The oil and gas industry has long lamented that court cases brought by environmental groups delay projects, putting them in jeopardy.

“That’s why this is so important to independents,” who often have a more difficulty weathering delays, Naatz said. “In many cases, it simply becomes uneconomical.”

The bill still requires Senate approval, and some conservative Republicans threatened its chances when they successfully added an amendment to exclude renewable fuel projects from the proposed permitting changes. President Trump further jeopardized bipartisan support when he directed five large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast to suspend their activities for at least 90 days.

Despite the new headwinds, the industry said it would continue to advocate to get the reforms passed this session.

“I remain optimistic that most members of Congress recognize the urgent need to pass permitting reform,” INGAA’s Andryszak said. “I’m hopeful that the economic imperatives of new energy infrastructure will bring members of Congress together for a bipartisan solution.”

IPAA’s Naatz urged the Senate to prioritize the legislation since “politics will push people further apart,” as the nation nears the November 2026 midterm elections.

Funding bills, pipeline safety

Industry is monitoring Congress’ federal budget activities to ensure funding for key agencies. “We also care about keeping the government open” to safeguard agency work on lease sales, permits, certificates, and market reports, Andryszak said.

“Another government shutdown is a concern,” added IPAA’s Naegele. “More than anything, our members need certainty, and government shutdowns throw uncertainty into the economy.”

Both API and INGAA said they are pushing for passage of the Pipeline Safety Reauthorization Act, which expired in 2023, and is slowly advancing in Congress. They are also watching upcoming Pipeline Safety and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) rules. API wants new pipeline safety regulations to include LNG plants and to “reflect a risk-based approach, modern technology and the latest industry practices and standards.”

Interior

The National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) is closely watching developments at the Interior Department and its agencies, said NOIA president Erik Milito.

“We’ve been put at a disadvantage for years because of a lack of lease sales,” Milito said. Legislation passed in 2025 opened more areas to development and set a schedule for lease sales, but industry would like redundant action by the Interior Department to give it the certainty to invest. “Creating redundancy helps create greater certainty,” he said.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) 5-year lease plan could provide some assurance, Milito said.

The offshore industry is eager to see the updated biological opinion (BiOp) for the endangered Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries will release this spring, Milito said.

A federal court struck down the previous BiOp as inadequate. While the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in 2025 implemented voluntary measures for vessels and leases to protect the expanded Rice’s whale area, the new BiOp could force more extensive protection efforts that could stymie offshore production, Milito noted.

An expansion of the whale’s critical habitat could have a “dramatic impact” on all offshore businesses operating in the Gulf from the “Florida Straight all the way to Mexico,” Milito said. “We hope they come up with reasonable mitigation efforts that don’t disrupt essential commerce.”

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) can take steps to open more federal lands for onshore development, added IPAA’s Naegele. As BLM develops longer-term plans for onshore leasing and drilling, “we’d like to see all areas put on the table and have public comments and industry interest winnow the scope” of the lands offered, she said.

FERC

At the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the LNG and pipeline industries are eager to see action on the commission’s blanket certificate policy for LNG.

Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for LNG and vice-president, Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), described FERC’s initiation of a notice of inquiry on the blanket authorizations for LNG plants as “a major development.”

“Modernizing this framework would allow routine modifications and upgrades at existing LNG facilities to proceed more efficiently, providing greater operational flexibility and regulatory certainty,” Riedl said. “This is especially important as facilities adapt to changing market conditions and deploy new technologies.”

Andryszak said it was imperative that FERC is staffed to handle an anticipated surge in number of applications for new pipelines and LNG plants. “Our members are telling us that they haven’t seen this level of interest since the Shale Revolution,” she said.

The Center for LNG’s Riedl added that his organization is “closely watching [Department of Energy] export authorization processes” and broader NEPA implementation across agencies.