"Policy experts warn new proposals to plug abandoned oil and gas wells amount to huge subsidy for the fossil fuel industry"
"Oil and gas companies have a century-old bad habit of drilling wells and ditching them. And while Congress finally has a plan to plug some abandoned wells, new proposals effectively pass the fossil fuel industry’s cleanup costs on to taxpayers and may even enable more drilling.
Concerned parties seem to agree on the scale of the crisis: millions of wells sit untended across the US, leaking toxins that pose public health problems along with the potent greenhouse gas methane, which contributes to the climate emergency.
But powerful special interests have carved out a presence in federal well-plugging efforts – one of the most bipartisan corners of Joe Biden’s $1tn infrastructure bill, which is due for a vote later this month. Instead of requiring fossil fuel companies to cover the actual cost of drilling and cleanup, policy experts say the proposal is an additional multibillion-dollar subsidy for the industry most responsible for driving the climate crisis.
“People on the surface think that this is a good environmental thing … but the devil is in the details,” said Megan Milliken Biven, a consultant and former program analyst with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “This is a bill for the bosses.”"
Leanna First-Arai reports for the Guardian September 21, 2021.
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