Williams Cos. will likely face some trials to get its renewed Constitution and Northeast Supply Enhancement projects across the finish line, but the exact form of the challenge is still taking shape.
The political environment in New York has changed since the mid-2010s when the state government of New York publicly fought the Constitution Pipeline project from the governor’s office down, said Tom Sharp, director of permitting intelligence for Arbo, a firm that tracks the state’s involvement with the energy industry.
Now the Constitution Pipeline project is back on the table with support from the White House. But it remains unclear if support from President Trump is enough to complete a pipeline in a region known for being against pipeline projects.
“There's nothing that says concretely that New York is on board with natural gas pipelines, and there's nothing that's removing the ability for litigation to pop up, which are the two things that I would be worried about in any project that was to be proposed there,” Sharp said.
Williams had led a joint venture that proposed the Constitution Pipeline in the early 2010s. The project would have built a 650 MMcf/d natural gas pipeline from the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania to eastern New York state, where it would connect to infrastructure to boost supplies to New England.
The State of New York opposed the project for environmental reasons, and then-governor Andrew Cuomo denied a water quality permit for the project on Earth Day in 2016. Williams eventually won the water permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), but walked away from the project after considering the cost of delays and litigation.
Following his election in 2024, President Donald Trump began talking up the Constitution Pipeline Project as part of his administration’s overall plan to increase energy security in the U.S.
In May, the White House said it struck a deal with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. In exchange for the U.S. government allowing the offshore Empire Wind Project to go forward, the state of New York would be more amenable to pipeline projects.
By the end of May, Williams said it had filed paperwork to restart the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, another stalled pipeline expansion project in New York, and was preparing to move forward again on the Constitution.
While the news was positive overall, Sharp said plenty of questions about the political environment in the region have not been answered definitively.
For one thing, Hochul’s only statement following the deal with the White House was that she will work with the federal government on “new energy projects that meet legal requirements under New York law,” which was not an enthusiastic endorsement of any specific project.
“She just said what any governor would say, which is, ‘Yeah, we're committed to working with developers as projects come up,’ which makes sense because that's what any governor would do,” Sharp said.
Hochul has shown a willingness to work on some pipeline projects. The state approved the 414-mile Iroquois Pipeline capacity enhancement project in April.
Beyond that, much of the original opposition remains in positions of power. The new head of New York’s State Department of Environmental Conservation, Amanda Lefton, worked on Cuomo’s staff. Her department is ultimately responsible for the water quality permits.
Sharp said future moves for the Constitution and NESE are still up in the air. Williams will make the first move, eventually filing with the FERC to move the project forward if the company decides to do so. The project will garner a lot of attention from the energy industry as a barometer for future projects.
“The question really isn't about the Constitution, it's whether or not anything could be built in that region generally,” he said.