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A new analysis by the Interior Department finds more than twice as many abandoned oil and gas wells across America than previously thought. The Hill reports that the department said on Wednesday there are more than 130,000 documented orphaned wells, up from a previous estimate of 56,600 wells in a 2019 analysis.
The new numbers come ahead of a webinar today laying out the path for identifying and remediating orphaned wells on national public lands. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law includes $250 million for cleaning up and plugging oil and gas wells on federal land. That program, led by the Bureau of Land Management, will be established by January 14th. The webinar is scheduled for 12:30 pm Mountain Time today. You can register for it here.
Meanwhile, a fix to the underlying problem—low bonding requirements that let oil and gas companies walk away from wells when they go bankrupt—faces an uncertain future in Congress. The Build Back Better Act passed by the House would have raised bonding rates. But Senator Joe Manchin, who effectively killed the BBB in the Senate last month, says he's had no talks about resurrecting the bill.
One year since the Capitol insurrection
One year ago today, antigovernment extremists failed to overturn the election of President Biden. A new documentary from ABC News traces the origins of the militias that backed the attempted coup to the 2014 public lands standoff with Cliven Bundy.
Historian and Johns Hopkins University professor Leah Wright Rigueur told ABC that when the federal government stood down in Bunkerville, allowing Bundy to continue to graze cattle illegally on federal lands, “It gave them hope that they could do it again, and maybe do something even on a bigger scale.”
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When I lay awake the first night, not able to sleep from the fire, when I was evacuated from my house, the first thing I thought of is: I need everyone to reduce their carbon emissions.”
