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A House committee is considering legislation introduced by Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert that could leave taxpayers on the hook for up to $17.7 billion in costs associated with cleaning up oil and gas wells abandoned on public lands by fracking companies and other polluters, according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Oil and gas industry lobbyists and their allies on Capitol Hill are working to defeat a Biden administration proposal that would strengthen federal requirements designed to force fossil fuel companies to plug wells and clean up drilling sites on federal lands after extraction. Boebert’s bill would direct the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to withdraw its proposal, and the House Natural Resources Committee considered the bill for markup on Wednesday.
“The boom-and-bust nature of the oil and gas industry puts taxpayers at higher risk for well cleanup because, when prices fall for oil and gas, bad actors have an economic incentive to just walk away from their wells, leaving taxpayers in the lurch,” Alan Zibel, a Public Citizen research director, said in a statement.
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