Similar legislation was introduced in 2021 as Senate Bill 945 in a bid to undermine efforts by Gov. Wolf to have state government purchase nearly 50% of the electricity it uses from new solar energy facilities in six counties. Read more here.
The legislation was reported out of the Senate Environmental Committee in January 2022 and died in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Senate Bill 1330 would prohibit state government from owning clean energy credits it receives from buying renewable energy and require those credits it holds to be sold undermining efforts to transition to clean energy..
The proceeds of the sale of these taxpayer assets would go to the Marcellus Legacy Fund to be used to plug oil and gas wells routinely abandoned by conventional well owners.
Click Here for Sen. Yaw’s complete announcement.
Wells Continue To Be Abandoned By The Hundreds
While raising money to plug abandoned conventional wells seems like a worthy goal, it does nothing to stop the rising tide of NEW well abandonments by this industry that continues to abandon their wells by the hundreds every year.
As DEP pointed out in a December 2022 report on the conventional oil and gas industry, well abandonment is the most frequent violation issued by DEP to this industry and it is done routinely to avoid plugging responsibilities. Read more here.
Pennsylvania is already set to receive $395 million in federal taxpayer funding under the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to plug wells abandoned by conventional oil and gas well owners in the state.
So far in 2024, DEP has issued more than 763 notices of violation to conventional oil and gas well owners for abandoning and not plugging wells they own. Read more here.
In 2023, DEP issued 472 notices of violation to conventional oil and gas well owners for abandoning and not plugging wells they own. Read more here.
From 2017 through 2023, DEP reported well abandonment was the most frequent violation by conventional operators and issued 4,266 violations for abandoning wells without plugging them. Read more here (2017-2021). Read more here (2022). Read more here (2023)
As reported in the media, DEP has only $15 per well in bonds on hand to deter future abandoned wells from existing oil and gas well owners. Read more here.
In 2022, Sen. Yaw introduced and Gov. Wolf signed legislation to prohibit DEP from increasing bond amounts on conventional oil and gas wells for 10 years. Read more here.
The law undercut efforts by several environmental groups to increase conventional well bond amounts to more nearly match the cost of plugging those wells by taxpayers in a petition submitted to the Environmental Quality Board. Read more here.
In addition, any conventional oil and gas well drilled before April 18, 1985-- which is most of them-- are not required to have any plugging bonds, leaving the entire cost of those well pluggings to be paid for by taxpayers.
Legislation has been introduced-- House Bill 962 (Vitali-D-Chester)-- to restore DEP’s authority to increase conventional well plugging bond amounts and it was reported out of the House Environmental Committee in July 2023, but remains Tabled. Read more here.
[Posted: October 1, 2024] PA Environment Digest
