According to the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, there are at least 49 orphan wells in the state -- wells that are abandoned and not plugged -- on private, state and federal lands.
Congress is once again debating who should clean them up. Last year, the Biden administration proposed increasing the minimum bond amounts on oil and gas leases. But Republicans in the U.S. House have voted to repeal those reforms, saying they would reduce oil production. The bill passed on a party-line vote.
Dave Jenkins, president of the group Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, contended operators in the West know how to play the system and offload well-site cleanup costs to taxpayers.
"There's an easy fix here, which is to require a bond adequate enough that if they do skip out, we have the money to clean it up and it's not taxpayers holding the bag," Jenkins suggested.
Jenkins argued anyone who is what he called "fiscally conservative and cares about keeping taxes low" should support the Interior Department's proposed reforms. The proposal would increase the minimum lease bond amount to $150,000 and the minimum statewide bond to $500,000.
Jenkins noted his group studied the issue and found taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $15 billion for future plugging and cleanup costs of orphan wells on federal land if the proposed reform is not enacted. He added estimates of the number of abandoned wells nationwide range from hundreds of thousands to millions, creating a long-term financial burden for taxpayers.
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Categories: North Dakota, General