The Department of the Interior today released final guidance on how states can apply for up to $40 million each in Regulatory Improvement Grant funding available under President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create jobs and clean up polluting and unsafe orphaned oil and gas wells across the country. With today's announcement, the Department has made all categories of funding for orphaned well clean-up under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law available to states, Tribes and federal agencies.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Department is delivering the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history, including $4.7 billion to plug orphaned wells. Plugging is underway nationwide, and since the law's enactment, states have already plugged nearly 9,500 orphaned wells.
"I am incredibly proud of the work the Department of the Interior has done to move quickly and efficiently to implement this once-in-a-generation investment in tackling legacy pollution, provided through President Biden's Investing in America agenda," said Secretary Deb Haaland. "Addressing orphaned wells cuts methane emissions, advances environmental justice for communities that have too long been left behind, and creates jobs. By releasing the final guidance today, this Department has accomplished a significant milestone for the orphaned wells program that will lead to improved lives, cleaner air and water, and economic revitalizations nationwide."
Orphaned oil and gas wells are polluting backyards, recreation areas, and community spaces across the country. Many of these wells pose serious health and safety threats to air and water quality by contaminating surface and groundwater, releasing toxic air pollutants, polluting drinking water sources, and leaking methane- a "super pollutant" that is a significant cause of climate change and many times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Plugging orphaned wells supports broader Biden-Harris administration efforts under the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan.
States are eligible for two types of Regulatory Improvement Grants under today's announcement:
- Plugging Standards Grants: Intended to incentivize states to implement standards and procedures designed to ensure that wells located in the state are plugged in an effective manner that protects groundwater and other natural resources, public health and safety, and the environment.
- Program Improvement Grants: Intended to incentivize states to implement other improvements to state programs designed to reduce future orphaned well burdens, such as financial assurance reform, alternative funding mechanisms for orphaned well programs, and reforms to programs relating to well transfer or temporary abandonment.
Under the final guidance, states are eligible to receive a Plugging Standards Regulatory Improvement Grant of $20 million, and a Program Improvement Regulatory Improvement Grant of $20 million, for a total of $40 million per state. By incentivizing states to improve their standards, procedures and orphaned well programs, these grants will help better protect the environment and help prevent the creation of new orphaned wells.
The Department's orphaned wells program advances the Biden-Harris administration's ambitious environmental justice goals through the Justice40 Initiative, which sets a goal to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities that have been marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
In addition to providing historic funding to states, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $150 million clean-up efforts on Tribal land, of which, approximately $81 million has been awarded by the Department to Tribes. Additionally, $250 million is available under the law to clean up well sites in national parks, national forests, national wildlife refuges, and other public lands, all of which has been disbursed over the past four years.
