ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump signed two executive orders on Wednesday [4-10-19] that he says will speed up construction of pipelines and other projects to enhance the production and transport of oil and natural gas between states and across international borders. The actions are unlikely to have much of an immediate impact, and they will probably attract legal challenges by state governments seeking to preserve control over such projects. But the orders are symbolically important for a president who likes to take credit for a boom in energy production and exports. And he delivered the message in Texas, an oil-rich Republican state where Democrats recently made electoral gains. One order directs the Environmental Protection Agency to review and tighten rules to make it more difficult for states to scuttle pipelines by invoking provisions of the Clean Water Act. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, an opponent of hydraulic fracturing, has blocked natural gas pipelines that would connect several Northeastern states to Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale gas field. A shortage of natural-gas pipeline capacity prompted Consolidated Edison to impose a moratorium on new gas connections last month in parts of Westchester County.”
–Clifford Krauss, “Trump Signs Orders to Speed Up Oil and Gas Pipeline Construction,” The New York Times online, April 10, 2019