Can the Permian Survive Its Own Success?

Our thesis is simple: it is long past time for us to consider a Permian Basin Energy & Infrastructure Coalition (PBEIC).

The Permian Basin is one of America’s greatest economic engines — and one of its most underappreciated national assets. Stretching across West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, it has produced more than 30 billion barrels of oil over the last century, currently accounting for nearly half of U.S. crude output, anchoring American energy security and exports. On its current trajectory, the Permian could remain the world’s most productive shale basin for decades.

Yet size is both its strength and its strain. Beneath impressive production numbers lies a more fragile reality: shale wells decline fast, new drilling must race just to maintain output, and pipelines, processing plants, power infrastructure, and water systems struggle to keep up. Growth is no longer guaranteed simply because the rocks are good. It will depend on whether the region can build and permit critical infrastructure at the speed required to compete.

Recent expansions — from Gray Oak to Matterhorn Express — help, but even those will fill quickly. Gas takeaway remains difficult, methane regulations are tightening, and routine flaring is no longer tolerated by regulators, consumers, or investors. The basin’s bottleneck is increasingly above ground, not below it.

What’s slowing progress isn’t geology — it’s governance.

The Permian is split between two states, dozens of counties, federal lands, and overlapping regulatory authorities, each with different rules for methane, flaring, produced water, rights-of-way, and environmental review. A single pipeline may require approvals from Texas, New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management, EPA, local governments, landowners, and multiple federal statutes. None of these actors are wrong. But together, they create friction.

Investors notice. Capital prefers predictability, and predictability thrives on coordination. Without it, projects take longer, cost more, and occasionally stall. And while state regulators like the Railroad Commission in Texas and the Oil Conservation Division in New Mexico do extraordinary work within their borders, the molecule doesn’t know when it crosses the state line — but the permit does.

The question isn’t whether the basin will be regulated — it already is. The question is whether fragmented regulation can scale to the next decade of infrastructure build-out, including CO₂ trunk lines, hydrogen corridors, electrification for operations, water reuse systems, LNG and petrochemical connectivity, and growing export capacity.

A path forward exists: create a Permian Basin Energy & Infrastructure Coalition (PBEIC).

Not a new regulator. Not a federal takeover. But a partnership.

This would be a bottom-up, pro-growth coordination framework — built first through a multi-party agreement between Texas, New Mexico, federal partners, local governments, and industry — to streamline permitting, align core expectations, and jointly plan infrastructure in a basin-wide context.

Think of it as a regional playbook, not a bureaucratic overlay.

The guiding principle for PBEIC should be to find a practical, science-based decision making mechanism that reduces bureaucracy while preserving regulatory integrity – not the lowest common denominator.

A PBEIC could, with the shared input from all parties:

• Coordinate permitting timelines for cross-state pipelines and CO₂ networks
• Develop basin-wide model methane and flaring practices that preserve flexibility
• Build a shared infrastructure roadmap to guide long-term investment
• Create space for industry leadership, not industry compliance alone
• Improve transparency, data alignment, and ESG credibility
• Serve as a forum for local communities and workforce development

This isn’t unprecedented. Interstate water compacts, regional climate programs like Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and North Sea frameworks such as Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) have shown how sovereigns can collaborate without ceding authority. They work because they coordinate where interests align and maintain independence where they differ.

The Permian is stepping into a new chapter — one where the story won’t be told by production alone, but by the strength of the infrastructure that supports it. And the smartest, most resilient infrastructure isn’t built permit by permit; it’s shaped through a shared vision for the entire basin.

The alternative is a slow tightening of constraints: projects that take longer and cost more, communities facing more volatility than they should, and slower capture of associated gas. In a world where our allies depend on American energy for security and stability, those delays become more than operational setbacks — they become foreign policy vulnerabilities.

A regional coalition would send a very different message:

That the Permian is not just a resource to be managed, but a unified enterprise prepared for the next era of American energy dominance.

Now is the moment to lead — before today’s tensions become tomorrow’s setbacks. Leaders across Southeast New Mexico and West Texas, from local governments to federal partners to the companies that fuel our nation, have a rare chance to shape something bigger than any single jurisdiction: a shared framework that champions investment, accelerates infrastructure, advances next-generation energy development, and strengthens the communities that make the Permian Basin run.

This begins with a simple commitment to cooperation. A coalition of counties and cities — from Lea and Eddy to Hobbs, Carlsbad, and Artesia — can set the tone by establishing a unified voice and a common agenda. From there, momentum grows. Early, visible wins show that when governments align, progress moves faster — not slower. And success breeds ambition, opening the door to more durable forms of partnership that outlast political cycles and create true regional stability.

Because if we expect the Permian Basin to keep powering America’s economy and protecting America’s national security, we must boldly approach it with the strategic vision it deserves. The geology has already given us an extraordinary gift.

What comes next is up to us.