|
The Biden administration announced more than $1 billion in state funding to clean up thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across the country.
The $1.15 billion in funds announced Monday is the first portion of nearly $5 billion that Congress approved in the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last fall. The money will go to 26 states, including $39 million for Colorado, $35.5 million for Wyoming, $26.3 million for Utah, and $26.3 million for Montana.
Earlier this month, the Interior Department said there are at least 130,000 documented abandoned wells across the U.S., although the actual number could be higher than 2 million, according to an EPA estimate from 2018.
While the cleanup funding is long overdue, Congress has not addressed the underlying problem—insufficient bonding rates that allow oil companies to go bankrupt or walk away from oil wells without cleaning them up.
“Who could argue that we shouldn’t be cleaning up orphaned wells? And it doesn’t cost the industry anything,” Cornell University professor Robert Howarth told the Washington Post. “[But] it doesn’t go to the heart of what we really need to do if we’re going to solve the methane monster.”
|
There's damage and it is unnecessary. This should have been done with a real sense of excellence. ... Mill Canyon was a major discovery and a real jewel in Utah's crown.”
