By Benoît Morenne and Ryan Dezember

President Trump wants to help fossil-fuel companies lay new pipes in the Northeast. Companies aren't eager to rush in.

Pipeline developers including Williams and Kinder Morgan have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years on projects to shuttle natural gas into New York, New Jersey and New England -- only to kill the plans after years of local opposition and court battles.

Now, the pro-oil-and-gas president is fixated on reviving these projects, particularly the Constitution pipeline, which would have sent natural gas from Pennsylvania throughout the Northeast. He has signed executive orders to fast-track pipelines and pressured Democratic governors to approve new lines.

The campaign appears to be yielding fruit: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this week said she would work with his administration on new energy projects that meet the state's legal requirements. Hochul's comments came after Trump reversed a stop-work order on a major wind project off New York's coast. The president's reversal has spurred industry speculation about whether any sort of deal had been struck.

Pipeline executives say they appreciate Trump's help, but they still face a tall order. They would have to restart projects from scratch and wade through a tough regulatory environment at a time when they have plenty to chew on. They are servicing power-hungry data centers and new natural-gas export terminals, including in the Southeast, which has been friendlier to fossil fuels.

"We're not gonna put our head in the vise," Alan Armstrong, the chief executive of Williams, said of Constitution in a March interview. "It would have to be a pre-rolled out red carpet, frankly, for us to go back in."

Still, companies are willing to take another look at the Northeast, an appealing market that has seen its energy woes worsen. Electricity bills have soared, and concerns are mounting about the electric grid's reliability. Some Democratic governors have shown support for shipping in new supplies from gas fields right on their doorstep.

Some pipeline executives say they were heartened by Hochul's comments. Although she didn't mention pipelines in a statement cheering the resurrection of the wind farm, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on social media that her words showed a "willingness to move forward on critical pipeline capacity."

A spokesman for Hochul said no deal was made regarding any pipelines.

Hochul convinced the Trump administration to lift the stop-work order in a series of phone calls over the weekend. She argued that New York badly needs electricity from the wind farm and that stopping construction would hurt union workers who voted for Trump, according to a person familiar with the calls. If the stop-work order had been upheld, she said it would set a chilling precedent for presidents to cancel permitted projects that they don't like.

Amy Andryszak, CEO of trade group Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said Trump is known for making deals, and that his U-turn on the wind farm made her optimistic that new pipelines could move forward in the Northeast. "Our members are ready to build," she said.

The region has been a flashpoint in the pipeline wars, which have pitted environmental groups against companies looking to sell the shale boom's bounty into new markets.

Groups opposed to the fossil-fuel expansion have learned to challenge pipelines in court rather than trying to block drilling in oil-and-gas locales. They have been especially successful stopping projects seeking to move gas from Appalachia's prolific Utica and Marcellus shales north and east.

Five interstate pipeline projects were canceled between 2013 and 2021, including Williams' Constitution, as well as its proposed expansion of supply lines that run beneath New York Harbor and into the city. Together the scuttled projects would have boosted capacity by about 5 billion cubic feet a day to more than 25 million homes, according to the Interstate Natural Gas Association.

As a result, prices in Boston and New York spike when demand peaks during cold snaps and heat waves. Although the U.S. is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, New England occasionally imports LNG to meet its needs.

Before Trump came into office, pipeline companies had all but given up on expanding in the Northeast, saying ideological opposition to fossil fuels made it too hard.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo once told Williams executives that his state wouldn't give the company a crucial water permit to build Constitution because environmentalists were an important support for him, the CEO said in the interview. Williams dropped the project in 2020.

Some energy executives say Trump's push on blue states is opening a path. In addition to directing agencies to expedite pipeline permits, he has directed his justice department to identify and stop the enforcement of state laws seeking to address climate change. The president has championed Constitution and urged Hochul to approve it.

Unlike Cuomo, Hochul hasn't drawn a hard line against natural gas. Her administration earlier this year approved key permits to expand a gas pipeline that services the state.

Much has changed since Williams pursued Constitution. Its original co-investors have changed hands, and the company is focused on sending Appalachian gas to the Southeast, where new data centers and LNG terminals are being built. Also, the regional pipelines Constitution would have fed are now at capacity and would need to be expanded, said Zach Krause at energy-data firm East Daley Analytics.

Some pipeline executives say the Northeast remains a regulatory and legal land mine for developers. Companies would have to complete any new project quickly. Oil-and-gas executives worried a new administration might derail their work have urged Trump to cement his pro fossil-fuel moves in legislation before they greenlight new multibillion-dollar pipelines.

"This is also a new era of opportunity for project sponsors," Kevin Book, head of research at research firm ClearView Energy Partners. "There may be a taker out there."

Write to Benoît Morenne at benoit.morenne@wsj.com and Ryan Dezember at ryan.dezember@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 22, 2025 11:00 ET (15:00 GMT)

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