Orphaned wells
Languishing across the country are hundreds of thousands of orphaned wells—so named because there’s either no record of ownership or the last owner is no longer solvent. These wells pose a threat to the climate and public health because, left unplugged, they often leak methane and other volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere and contaminate land and groundwater with harmful substances, like arsenic, benzene, and salt.
The industry successfully convinced lawmakers that the best way to address orphaned wells is with large block grants, which are given to state regulators who then pay oil service companies for the actual plugging—effectively subsidizing the oil industry by allowing corporations to offload a pricey liability onto taxpayers.
IOGCC was integral to the industry push, which was ultimately incorporated into the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. At the group’s annual conference in November of that year, Micah Chambers, legislative director for Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), credited IOGCC executive director Lori Wrotenbery for her help turning the industry preference into government policy. “There’s not many people that know this issue better than Lori, and the work that she did for us on the Hill, goes without saying, but it was incredibly helpful,” Chambers said.
Now that the Department of the Interior (DOI) has begun awarding over $4.2 billion in block grants, IOGCC is working behind the scenes to weaken federal oversight.
IOGCC knows that most state regulatory programs are flawed and inadequate. At a commission meeting in May 2023, Oklahoma Secretary of Energy Ken McQueen described his state’s orphaned-well problem as “a train coming down the tracks.” He added, “It strikes me that, as a state organization, if I'm ending up with 18,000 wells that it’s going to be my responsibility to plug, then probably my regulatory regimes are not what they should be in order to prevent that.”
A year later, IOGCC asked state regulators a series of questions on bonding rules, including: “We have seen wells passed from good operators to marginal operators, to poor operators. Is this a problem in your state? How do you control this flow?” The states’ responses were revealing.
- Louisiana: “Yes, this is the common life of a well.”
- West Virginia: “This is a problem in WV. We commonly enter into consent orders with the new operator before transferring wells. Unfortunately, this is not extremely successful.”
- Kentucky: “There has been seen some movement from larger, more stable operators to smaller less capitalized operators who focus less on BMPs [best management practices] and diligent compliance. However, as long as the incoming new operators meet the state bonding standards and regulatory requirements, we do not see a solution to control that shift.”
Despite being well aware of flaws within state regulatory programs, IOGCC has fought attempts to incentivize states to strengthen their programs. For example, in October 2023, DOI requested input from stakeholders on how to award grants to states that have strengthened their plugging standards or updated their programs to reduce the number of wells orphaned in the future. In response, IOGCC wrote [emphasis added]: “IOGCC worked with other stakeholders to draft the language codified in [the law amended by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law]. At IOGCC’s request, the drafters included the phrase ‘designed to’ in both subclauses to avoid the implication that a state would have to prove that the regulatory improvement achieved the intended result… A state need only show that the regulatory improvements are designed to achieve the intended result to qualify for a grant.”
In other comments,
IOGCC argued that DOI should not require states to prioritize orphaned
wells based on public health and safety concerns or methane emissions.
It likewise rejected the idea that states should be required to check
for methane leaks and water contamination before and after plugging.
DOI ignored most of IOGCC’s suggestions related to prioritization and monitoring, but the commission is now supporting the Orphan Well Grant Flexibility Act.
This bill would explicitly forbid DOI from requiring states to measure
methane emissions or prioritize orphaned wells based on factors such as
public health and safety, potential environmental harm, and other land
use priorities.