Nobody knows how many orphan and abandoned drilling sites litter the landscape of farms, forests, and backyards nationwide, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are more than a million of them.
Unplugged wells can leak methane, an explosive gas, into neighborhoods and leach toxins into groundwater. Methane leaks can cause explosions.
Two new California laws aimed at increasing state regulators’ ability to hold petroleum companies accountable for the costs of plugging and cleaning up their wells could get their first real test with the California Resources Corporation (CRC) bankruptcy and restructuring.
Democrats and some Republicans have begun pushing for a federal government-funded pool of money to address the pollution flowing from the country’s potentially millions of orphan wells.
Federal rescue unlikely with rescue bill failure
On July 1, 2020, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a $1.5 trillion bill that wrapped up COVID-19 relief and infrastructure spending. It includes $2 billion that they say would put unemployed oil workers back on the job plugging orphan wells.
