There are 214,548 orphaned wells across the country with almost 32,000 within a 30-mile radius from a national park site.
These wells abandoned by bankrupt companies, leak toxins into our environment. They are left to become taxpayers responsibility.
The Oil and Gas Bonding Reform and Orphaned Well Remediation Act's (S. 2177) introduction gives us the opportunity to establish a federal program to permanently plug orphaned wells across the country, which could create as many as 120,000 jobs and ensure that the nation's transition to cleaner energy sources benefits all communities.
It also brings us one step closer to holding gas and oil companies responsible to us and our environment.
Please contact your senators today to support S.2177. Your support is crucial in helping to advance legislation that would ensure cleaner air and water quality for our parks and the communities near them.
As a lover of our National Parks and a taxpayer, I was dismayed to learn that there are nearly 215,000 orphaned wells across the country, over 31,000 of which are near our national parks.
It is unfortunate that due to a lack of sufficient bonding requirements to ensure that oil and gas companies plug, remediate, and reclaim these wells, they are left leaking toxics into the environment and leave us, the taxpayers, with the clean-up job. Orphaned and idle wells deepen the climate crisis, contaminate groundwater, leak methane and other air pollutants that pose serious public health risks, such as respiratory problems such as asthma, eye/nose/throat irritation, frequent headaches, nausea, dizziness and general fatigue. These issue are especially prevalent in rural, Tribal and communities of color.
I write to urge you to support S. 2177 / H.R. 2415 the Orphaned Well Cleanup and Jobs Act, which would clean up orphaned wells and create jobs, while increasing the bonding rate so that taxpayers don't shoulder the burden of cleanup in the future. We need to permanently plug orphaned wells so that we don't deepen the climate crisis even more and we need to hold oil and gas companies accountable for cleaning up after the wells they've profited from. Please co-sponsor S. 2177 / H.R. 2415.
[Name]
