Tell your state senator: Prevent orphan oil wells

A growing number of California’s older oil and gas wells are at risk of becoming orphaned as oil companies sell wells to smaller, less solvent buyers. When these owners go bankrupt, they leave oil wells behind for the state to clean up. We now have an estimated 5,000 orphan wells in California and are at risk of seeing over 69,000 more orphan wells in coming years.

An Environment California backed bill, AB1167, the Orphan Well Prevention Act, would require an oil company to carry enough insurance to fund the cleanup of oil wells in the event of bankruptcy before they can purchase oil wells.

Taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook to pay for cleaning up orphan wells and shouldn’t have to face the environmental and health threats of living near unplugged, out of use oil wells. Tell your state senator to pass AB 1167, the Orphan Well Prevention Act.