History of Fossil Fuel Fights (Updated Spring 2026)

This “un-NESE-sary” pipeline has been widely protested by communities, environmental groups and municipalities since 2016. This dirty fossil-fuel project will bring fracked methane gas from Pennsylvania through our state to Long Island, New York. It includes:

• Construction of a proposed new gas-powered compressor station in Franklin Township near Trap Rock Quarry. 
• 3.5 miles of new connecting pipeline through Old Bridge and Sayreville, referred to as the “Madison Loop,” which would cut through critical wetlands, several residential developments, Route 9 through Westminster Boulevard, the NJ Parkway in Sayreville, and underneath the NJ TRANSIT railroad.
• 23 miles of new pipeline under the Raritan Bay/New York Harbor, which would dredge up thousands of tons of contaminated sediment and release toxins like arsenic, lead, and PCBs.

In 2020, both the New Jersey and New York Departments of Environmental Protection denied the permit saying that the added gas was unnecessary. However in 2021 Williams Transco asked for, and was granted, two more years by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to find a way to build the project. 

In May of 2024, Williams Transco decided not to renew their FERC extension, halting development.

Unfortunately, in the spring of 2025 this dirty project resurfaced to provide natural gas energy to the residents of Long Island and the Trump Administration’s intense push back of offshore wind development.

In partnership with the Stop NESE coalition, the NJ Sierra Club organized to help pass over 21 local town resolutions opposing the dirty project.

The Chapter submitted technical comments to the NJDEP for both the water and air permits. In advance of the only water permit public hearing in September 2025, we gathered with over 100 activists and allies to rally at the Bayshore against NESE (NJ Spotlight).

Unfortunately, in November that year, the NJDEP and NYDEC granted Williams Transco their water permits and in January 2026, they were granted their air permit (NJ Spotlight coverage, Inside Climate News). The Sierra Club joined several state advocates in a lawsuit to challenge the project’s water permit, and will continue to legally fight NESE.

In May of 2026, the NESE project was granted its last permit needed for construction, a Utility License from the NJ Tidelands Council (My Central Jersey coverage). 

Ultimately, Trump’s administration strong-armed this multi-state project across the finish line, compromising the health of communities and the environment for this costly development because of his fossil fuel and anti-clean energy agenda.  

The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC), a NJ regional public utility and governmental body, is advancing a fracked-gas backup power plant that would increase air pollution and raise noise levels directly adjacent to Newark’s Ironbound (East Ward), a community already severely overburdened by environmental hazards.

Instead of moving forward with viable battery storage technology and solar generation as a solution for this backup generation, PVSC selected fossil fuel generation. 

Sierra Club has always supported and amplified the fight in opposition to PVSC and helped mobilize folks across the state in support of the Ironbound community. NJ Sierra Club additionally submitted technical comments in 2024 in response to the Title V Air Quality Draft Permit proposed by the NJDEP asking for its denial. Unfortunately, NJDEP approved the permit for this project in 2025.

Although the PVSC board approved the project in mid-June 2025, construction is currently halted due to ongoing litigation. 

Beginning in 2020, the New Jersey Sierra Club, alongside groups including Food & Water Watch and the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, led a years-long legal and public campaign against the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s East 300 Upgrade project. 

The expansion proposed upgrades to existing pipeline infrastructure in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including modifications to the Wantage Compressor Station in Sussex County and construction of a new electric-driven compressor station, CS 327, in West Milford within the Highlands Preservation Area near Hewitt Brook (c1 stream) and the Monskville Reservoir.  More information on project details here. 

The Highlands Council gave Tennessee Gas an exemption for its natural gas compressor station. Later in 2021, NJDEP also granted TGP an "Exemption 11" under the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, deciding the project qualified as a “routine upgrade.” The NJ Sierra Club and its allies filed an immediate lawsuit against the NJDEP, claiming the massive new facility violated the core preservation standards of the Highlands Act.

That year, we organized with allies to hold a town hall against the compressor stations with close to 200 people, including government officials from West Milford, and mobilized residents for a week of action. Several New Jersey municipalities, including Wantage, Ringwood, Bloomfield, Montague, Vernon, Hamburg, and Somerset adopted resolutions opposing TGP.

In August of 2023, we scored a temporary legal victory when a state Appellate Court ruled that the NJDEP should not have issued the Highlands Act exemption to a Superior Court, meaning they had no permit for the construction work they were already conducting in the Highlands Preservation Area in West Milford (Sierra Club statement, Star Ledger). 

However, the NJDEP allowed work to continue under the designation of "maintenance,” and officially authorized the upgrade as a routine maintenance project in 2023. 

The legal momentum later shifted in favor of the pipeline company. In 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the previous appeals ruling, stating that the project legally fit the criteria for a utility upgrade exemption.

This four-year legal battle officially concluded in July of 2025, when the NJ Appellate Court ruled that the project's compressor station did not violate Highlands Act restrictions, allowing the $246 million expansion to continue operating.

Gibbstown Logistics Center Terminal (2019-Present)

The proposed Gibbstown facility is a liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal along the Delaware River in Gloucester County.  In June, 2019 the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) unanimously approved dredging for a deep-water seaport along the Delaware. 

This would be the first LNG export facility in the Delaware River basin and would involve extremely hazardous transportation and storage of liquified natural gas. According to the permit application, over 360 truck trips per day would come and go from the logistics center. Trains would carry natural gas liquids (NGL) and (if approved) LNG. These trains have been referred to as “bomb trains” due to their elevated risk of explosion. 

This disastrous project will impact our public health, our public safety, and our environment. Governor Murphy stated his opposition, yet the project is still moving forward.

In 2021, Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, and Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future filed comments urging the denial of New Fortress Energy's 2021 application to renew the expired Special Permit by PHMSA (an agency within the USDOT). They were officially denied this special rail permit renewal in April 2023. 

In March 2022, the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, and PennFuture successfully sued to halt construction on the Wyalusing facility.

In September 2025, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) unanimously voted to extend the permit for the proposed export terminal. In October 2025, the air permit was approved by NJDEP. 

New Fortress still needs multiple state permits from Pennsylvania and the Special Permit from PHMSA.

We will continue to ensure that this dangerous transport of LNG does not come to fruition.

Read: Gibbstown LNG Port Trying Sneak Around FERC and DRBC

In 2021, environmental groups including the Sierra Club intervened on Williams Transco’s REAE natural gas expansion project before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The project included two new pipeline facilities, a 21.98 mile lateral pipe in Luzerne County, PA and a 13.78 mile pipe loop in Monroe County, PA, and new 11,107 hp Compressor Station 201 in Gloucester County and expanded its existing compressor station in Somerset County, NJ.

View our submitted comments, which include more information about the impacts this project will have on New Jersey. 

In 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated FERC’s approval, finding that FERC failed to adequately assess the project’s environmental and market-need impacts, effectively halting its federal authorization. The NJ Sierra Club released a statement on the decision here.

However, even after that court decision, the original certificate remained active while a rehearing was pending, and Transco began operating the REAE Project in August 2024. In January 2025 under the Trump Administration, FERC issued an order on remand reinstating the certificate.

The Transitgrid project was a 140 MW natural gas-fired power generating plant proposed in an industrial zone in Kearny, NJ in 2016. This proposal came in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to serve as backup power and to enhance the “resiliency” of the electricity supply to the NJ TRANSIT and Amtrak infrastructure which serves key commuter markets in New Jersey.

The NJ Chapter advocated for years to stop this dirty and senseless project. Hoboken passed a resolution opposing the project in 2020, which was one of the municipalities that would have been impacted by new transmission lines and infrastructure.

You can find our statement on the rubber-stamped Environmental Impact Statement for the project here.

In January 2024 after years of pointing out that the plant was not financially viable, NJ TRANSIT announced the cancellation of the TransitGrid project.

In August of 2016, Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) proposed to build a new combined cycle 657-megawatt gas-fired power plant in the Keasbey section of Woodbridge, New Jersey through a significant modification of its Title V permit. This project would have been an unnecessary expansion of the existing Keasbey plant composed of two 240 MW turbines. In the spirit of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Law and Rule (only taking effect on April 17th, 2023), and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)’s Administrative Order 25, CPV started a public comment process ending in March 2023.

On October 12th, 2023 it was decided that the project would be halted due to market conditions. 

If approved, this would have significantly increased the burning of natural gas in the community of Woodbridge Township and would have potentially increased New Jersey’s GHG annual emissions by over 2%. The New Jersey Chapter has strongly opposed this plant for years, and took advantage of this public comment period to mobilize our staff and existing base of volunteers, activists, and members to take action by attending a public hearing, submitting written technical comments and oral testimony, attending rallies, and facilitating over 800 petition signatures. 

The Sierra Club’s work on this campaign was picked up in several media outlets like The Independent, The Associated Press, The Gothamist, My Central Jersey, TAPInto and more.

The PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC’s 116-mile methane gas pipeline would have shipped fracked Marcellus Shale gas from Northeast Pennsylvania (Luzerne County), across the Delaware River (near Riegelsville, NJ), then traversed Hunterdon County to the edge of Mercer County. 

The pipeline would have threatened more than 88 waterways, 44 wetlands, 30 parks, and 33 conservation easements with leaks, explosions and pollution.

The NJ Sierra Club and every municipality in Hunterdon County was on the record as opposing the proposed PennEast pipeline. Environmental groups and historic groups have also officially opposed it. Hundreds of citizens have also weighed in, the overwhelming majority speaking against the pipeline.

In September of 2021, the PennEast fracked gas pipeline was officially cancelled after being denied necessary water quality permits.

In 2013, South Jersey Gas (SJG) filed an application with the New Jersey Pinelands Commission to build a 22-mile, 24-inch high-pressure natural gas pipeline through the Pinelands Forest Area in Cumberland and Cape May Counties, primarily to supply gas to the B.L. England power plant.

In 2016, the Sierra Club won a major legal victory when a court ruled that the Pinelands Commission’s Executive Director lacked the authority to approve the pipeline without a full vote of the Commission.

Despite that ruling, in February 2017 the Pinelands Commission approved the controversial pipeline by a 9–5 vote. The Sierra Club, together with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, again challenged the approval in court, arguing that it violated the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan and protections for this unique ecosystem.

In March 2019, the Pinelands Commission ultimately voided its own approval after the owner of the B.L. England power plant abandoned plans to convert the facility from coal to gas, eliminating the project’s primary justification.

After nearly two decades of opposition from environmentalists and local residents, the B.L. England coal plant closed without being repowered by gas. With the plant shuttered, the SJG pipeline no longer had a purpose: there was nowhere for the gas to go, and the project would not have served or benefited Pinelands communities.

Here is our Chapter’s statement on defeating the project and the victory for Pinelands protection. 

New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) proposed its Pinelands pipeline (called the Southern Reliability Link or SRL), in 2015when it filed an application with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and the Pinelands Commission. The proposed SRL pipeline connects to a compressor station in Chesterfield and runs 28 miles of pipe through Burlington, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties, passing through the Pinelands Preservation Area. 

The pipeline cuts through the Joint Base in the Preservation Area established by the Pinelands Protection Act, which is supposed to get the highest level of protection.

The Sierra Club actively opposed the SRL pipeline throughout the review and approval process. Together with allies like the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, the Sierra Club submitted formal comments and sued the BPU and Pinelands Commission, arguing that the pipeline violated the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan, threatened critical forest and wetland ecosystems, and disproportionately impacted vulnerable communities along the route in Burlington, Ocean, and Monmouth Counties.

Despite opposition, the project got approval from the Pinelands Commission in late 2015 and NJBPU in early 2016. In September of 2017, the Pinelands Commission formally approved the pipeline by an 8–4 vote.

In 2020, the DEP suspended drilling permits for NJNG’s SRL due to public safety incidents, but eventually the courts backed the BPU and Pinelands Commission in 2021, greenlighting construction.