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January 21, 2022
Abandoned oil well counts are exploding — now that there’s money on the table
$4.7 billion released by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has states rethinking their abandoned oil well tallies....
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January 27, 2020
Airborne measurements point to low EPA methane estimates in south central US
Approximately twice as much methane is seeping into the atmosphere than the Environmental Protection Agency estimates from oil and gas facilities in the south central U.S., according to a series of measurements taken by meteorologists using NASA aircraft....
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January 31, 2022
Biden is sending more than $1 billion to states to plug abandoned oil and gas wells
The Biden administration on Monday announced it will send $1.15 billion to states to plug thousands of orphan oil and gas wells that emit methane, a potent climate-changing greenhouse gas....
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November 2, 2021
Biden unveils new rules to curb methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas operations
More than 100 countries have signed the Global Methane Pledge, which requires a 30 percent cut in methane emissions by 2030, one of the Biden administration’s priorities for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. The pledge’s signatories now represent nearly half of human-caused methane emissions....
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September 18, 2019
Bureau of Land Management should address risks from insufficient bonds to reclaim wells
Specifically, BLM identified 89 new orphaned wells between July 2017 and April 2019, and BLM offices identified to GAO about $46 million in estimated potential reclamation costs associated with orphaned wells and with inactive wells that officials deemed to be at risk of becoming orphaned in 2018....
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July 20, 2020
Considering a major federal effort to plug orphaned and abandoned wells
This paper, examines the potential to boost US employment in the oil and gas workforce while also reducing pollution through a federal program to plug orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells....
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June 1, 2020
Creating jobs and protecting the environment by cleaning up and plugging wells
To begin, workers and communities in oil and gas producing regions have been hit hard in recent months, as falling energy prices quickly translate into lost jobs, struggling businesses, and plunging tax revenue....
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June 21, 2021
Earth’s atmosphere trapping ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat: NASA, NOAA report
Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have determined in new research that the Earth’s atmosphere has been trapping an “unprecedented” amount of heat, with the planet’s energy imbalance approximately doubling from 2005 to 2019. ...
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October 15, 2021
EDF Launches New Map Showing Location of Every Documented Orphan Well in United States
Environmental Defense Fund unveiled a new map today that shows the location of every documented orphan well in the United States. The first-of-its-kind map shows the location of more than 81,000 orphan wells in 28 states. Orphan wells – which are unsealed wells left behind by oil and gas companies once they stop producing – can leak oil, toxic chemicals and methane, a powerful greenhouse gas....
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May 6, 2021
Global Assessment: Urgent steps must be taken to reduce methane emissions this decade
A Global Methane Assessment released today by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) shows that human-caused methane emissions can be reduced by up to 45 per cent this decade. Such reductions would avoid nearly 0.3°C of global warming by 2045 and would be consistent with keeping the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (1.5˚C) within reach....