← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Wright Announces $42 Million in Defense Production Act Funding to Advance the Constitution Pipeline at Cricket Valley, Oct. 19, 2026

October 19, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:19:04

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced at the Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dover Plains, New York, that the Department of Energy will use $42 million from the Defense Production Act to advance the Constitution Pipeline, in the department’s upload of the October 19, 2026 event. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Representative Mike Lawler joined Wright for a tour of the gas-fired plant, which Olympus Power’s Shawn Lane said generates electricity for over one million New York homes.

Wright said the Defense Production Act funding — a national defense authority, as he framed it — will de-risk construction of the pipeline by paying for the early permitting work and environmental studies needed to get a permit to build. The proposed 125-mile pipeline would carry natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York, according to the Department of Energy. Burgum argued that New York’s blocking of the pipeline had raised costs across New England, estimating billions of dollars of additional cost the previous winter; Lawler said New York has among the highest energy prices in the country and called approval of the Constitution and Northeast Supply Enhancement pipelines critical to the state’s energy infrastructure.

Why it matters

The Constitution Pipeline has been stalled for years; putting Defense Production Act money behind its permitting is the administration’s most concrete step yet to revive it, and it makes Wright — with Burgum beside him — the public face of the federal push to move Pennsylvania gas into New York and New England.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: up to $42 million in Defense Production Act Title III funding to advance the Constitution Pipeline, as announced October 19, 2026 — funding committed, permits still to be obtained. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright makes announcement at Cricket Valley Energy Center” (official upload, embedded above; remarks as delivered by Secretary Wright, Secretary Burgum, and Representative Lawler); Department of Energy announcement of the Constitution Pipeline funding, October 19, 2026.