The Trump administration just released a proposed rule that rigs the system for oil and gas billionaires while silencing the concerns of the American public. Through this action, this administration is silencing local input, threatening our cherished public lands, and sticking taxpayers with the multi-billion-dollar bill to clean up the industry’s toxic mess of abandoned wells.
The administration’s proposed changes will:
- Stick taxpayers with the bill for industry’s cleanup: By rolling back bonding requirements to levels first set in the 1950s and 60s, the administration is putting taxpayers on the hook for cleaning up and capping abandoned wells when drillers leave town – a massive giveaway to the oil and gas industry at taxpayers’ expense.
- Silence the public’s voice: The rule eliminates long-standing opportunities for local input on oil and gas leasing decisions and slashes the sole remaining public engagement period to a mere 10 days, while imposing fees on members of the public who wish to weigh in.
- Eliminate commonsense leasing standards that help prevent drilling in sensitive wildlife habitat, cultural sites, and treasured recreation areas.
When oil and gas wells stop producing, they can leave behind a legacy of harms, including destruction of local landscape and habitat, threats to underground sources of drinking water, leaks of climate-warming methane, and even residuals of toxic waste. Wells that no longer produce oil or gas must be carefully plugged and the law requires sites to be reclaimed to the condition they were in before drilling took place.
This costs money. Sometimes a lot of money, depending on the site. If the oil and gas companies don’t pay for it, wells often sit open and unplugged on the landscape for decades and taxpayers are left with the bill. Yet, the Trump Administration is proposing to slash the financial guarantee that oil and gas companies must put up before they drill on public lands. Adequate bonding rates ensure that oil and gas companies who drilled and profited from wells, not taxpayers, foot the bill for plugging and cleaning them up.
Join us to protect our public lands from irresponsible energy development!
