The U.S. Department of the Interior earlier this week announced a proposal that would dramatically reduce both the amount of money oil and gas operators need to guarantee for cleanup efforts and the amount of time members of the public have to comment on oil and gas leases.
The proposal would temporarily reduce the bonding amount from $500,000 to $25,000 while the Interior Department gathers “public input on a fair long-term approach” and would reduce public participation periods on oil and gas leases from 90 to 10 days.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a statement said the moves would “cut through the red tape that has historically deterred investment, ensuring our public lands remain a reliable engine for economic growth and innovation.”
Critics, though, say the changes would unfairly place cleanup costs on taxpayers in states like New Mexico that have high levels of oil and gas production. Bonding money typically is meant to clean up spills and other environmental hazards that stem from abandoned or orphaned wells.
“This is a giveaway to the oil and gas industry, plain and simple,” Mark Allison, executive director of the conservation nonprofit New Mexico Wild, wrote in a statement. “Weakening bonding requirements means that when these companies walk away, New Mexicans are left holding the bill. Similarly, cutting public comment periods to ten days effectively silences the ranchers, hunters, recreationists, and rural communities who depend on these lands.”
A group of environmental groups earlier this year sued the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and accused it of imperiling residents’ health by failing to address “thousands of unplugged, inactive oil and gas wells and unremediated extraction sites littered across the state.”
Just last month, the State Land Office held a multi-day hearing over proposed bonding changes that would significantly increase the amount of money oil and gas operators have to post for potential cleanup operations.
Operators are currently required to guarantee a minimum of $10,000 for a single lease. The proposal under consideration would increase that to $150,000, which Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard previously said would “ensure that the public doesn’t have to pick up the tab if a company goes belly up or isn’t willing to clean up properly.”
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