On Monday, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced that California is eligible for $61,495,000 in the first phase of federal funding to plug orphaned oil and gas wells. This funding from the US Department of the Interior comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Padilla voted to pass last year....
Federal regulators are looking for ways to spend $250 million earmarked for cleaning up abandoned oil wells throughout the U.S. funded by the recent infrastructure bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden....
This year’s global climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, came with the usual sense of anticlimax: lots of lofty rhetoric, too little action. But world leaders made at least one meaningful pledge. More than 100 nations, including the United States, committed to reducing methane emissions by 30% by the end of decade....
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a goal to phase out oil drilling statewide by 2045, he focused on its impact on climate change. But oil drilling is also a health problem, particularly in Los Angeles, where thousands of oil wells still dot the city....
In the past five years, 207 oil and gas businesses have failed. As natural gas prices crater, the fiscal burden on states forced to plug wells could skyrocket; according to Rystad Energy AS, an industry analytics company, 190 more companies could file for bankruptcy by the end of 2022. Many oil and gas companies are idling their wells by capping them in the hope prices will rise again. But capping...
Five years ago, Elvia Garcia returned to her home in Arvin, which she said had been looted while she was gone. Since then, her family has continued to suffer from lingering headaches brought on by occasional odors. State regulators fined the company responsible for the leak, Petro Capital Resources LLC. The company installed machines on homes in the neighborhood, including Garcia’s, to remove gas — and vent it into backyards....
People living near unplugged oil and gas wells face exposure to cancer-causing chemicals, and toxic residue brought up by drilling below Earth’s surface can contaminate aquifers that could become future drinking water supplies....
CRC has since faced harsh market forces. Oil production at the wells now owned by the company is down more than 70% since the 1980s. Gas is down more than 50%. CRC’s shares had lost more than four-fifths of their value as of mid-January. The company’s cash generated after expenses — a key financial measure known as net free cash flow — is several hundred million dollars in the red...
Thousands of wells across the state, including near residential areas, have been left inactive for years and are in need of cleanup. ...
In California’s Central Valley and along the South Coast, there are many communities littered with abandoned oil and gas wells, buried underground....