Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) has announced Assembly Bill 1866, which addresses the urgent climate and public health crisis of idle oil wells.
The bill requires oil operators to develop a comprehensive plan to expeditiously plug the estimated 40,000 idle oil wells in California within the next decade.
The bill also requires operators to prioritize plugging wells within 3,200 feet of where communities live, play and work. AB 1866 is supported by some 100 organizations across California.
“AB 1866 is necessary to solve the idle oil well crisis in California. This proactive solution will protect taxpayers, create thousands of jobs, and safeguard communities,” said Hart.
“Idle oil wells in California act as a major source of methane gas emissions, ground water contamination and air pollution,” he said. “The facts are clear; this serious problem is getting worse and can’t be ignored.”
“Our current system for getting idle wells cleaned up is very badly broken,” said Ann Alexander, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Oil companies are allowed to just sit indefinitely on their defunct wells without plugging them, leaving them to leak hazardous pollution into our communities.
Linda Krop, chief counsel of the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center, said, “Our community is dealing with the crisis caused by oil companies abandoning their oil and gas wells. Leaks from these wells cause air and water pollution, threatening public health, the environment, and our climate.
“We need to hold the industry accountable for cleaning up its mess, and save taxpayers billions of dollars in cleanup costs.”
“California’s crackdown on polluters has to start before oil companies try to offload their cleanup duties onto the public,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Oil companies need to stop delaying and avoiding their responsibilities to plug idle wells, and this bill will make them do it.”
“AB 1866 will help ensure that polluters are paying to clean up their own messes, not taxpayers,” said Jasmine Vazin, strategist with the Sierra Club. “This is exactly the kind of legislation we need to pass here in California to require idle oil wells are cleaned up quickly, instead of sitting unplugged for years poisoning our communities.”
At the current pace, it is estimated to take 75-100 years to plug the majority of idle oil wells in California. Existing law requires operators to submit an Idle Well Management Plan and plug between 4%-6% of their oldest idle oil wells per year.
Operators also have the option to pay as little as $150 per well to avoid submitting a plan.
The program is not working as intended, Hart reports. Between 2018 and 2021, the number of idle wells increased from 29,000 to more than 38,000. It is estimated that if all idle oil wells become orphan, it could cost taxpayers over $10 billion to plug and remediate these sites.
AB 1866 increases the percentages of idle wells that operators need to plug each year, and eliminates the option to pay insignificant fees in lieu of a plan. AB 1866 will also require operators to prioritize plugging wells that are within 3,200 feet of communities, and wells that pose a threat to life, health, property or natural resources.
Hart represents the California Assembly’s 37th Assembly District, which includes Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, Buellton, Solvang, Lompoc, Guadalupe, Santa Maria, Orcutt, and Nipomo.