PA Environment Digest Blog: House Committee Moves Bill To Restore Authority For Setting Conventional Oil & Gas Well Plugging Bond Amounts To Help Protect Taxpayers From Billions In Plugging Costs; Republicans Oppose

On June 23, the House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee reported out House Bill 364 (Vitali-D-Delaware) by a vote of 14 to 12 to restore the authority of the Environmental Quality Board to adjust conventional oil and gas well plugging bonding amounts to help address the problem of routine abandonment of wells by owners.

Republicans voted against the bill that would help protect taxpayers from billions of dollars in well plugging costs.

The bill was then referred to the House Rules Committee as all bills are during the June budget session.

“So what we are doing, to be clear, is we are simply returning the law to where it was in 2022. And this would allow, doesn't require, but will allow the DEP and the Environmental Quality Board to adjust up from the $2,500 bond amount, which is wholly inadequate to ensure compliance,” said Rep. Greg Vitali, Majority Chair of the Committee and prime sponsor of the bill.

“To increase that amount on conventional drillers so that they had more skin in the game, as it were, to clean up their own mess,” said Rep. Vitali. “It's really not right. If you are an ongoing business and you are making profits from your business activity, you do have an obligation to clean up your mess, and not as part of your business model, leave pollution for others to have to incur the expense of cleaning up.

“So we are simply taking the law back to exactly the way it was about three years ago and giving the DEP and the EQB the authority if they choose to exercise it, to make an adjustment to that $2,500 bonding amount currently on a conventional well.”

[As part of the July 2022 budget settlement, the General Assembly passed and Gov. Wolf signed into law legislation that took away the authority of the Environmental Quality Board and DEP to review the adequacy of conventional oil and gas well plugging bonding amounts for 10 years. Read more here.

[The legislation was designed to head off a rulemaking petition from the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council and other groups accepted for study by the Environmental Quality Board in November 2021 to increase the well plugging bonding amounts for both conventional oil and gas and unconventional shale gas drillers to what it now costs taxpayers to plug a well when operators walk away from their obligations. Read more here.

[The Post-Gazette reported in 2021 DEP has about $15 per well on hand in well plugging bonds to plug all the active conventional wells-- somewhere over 90,545.

[At a June 12 House Environmental Committee hearing, DEP reported 3,108 conventional wells were cited for abandonment in the eight years between January 2017 and December 2024-- only 17% appeared to be abandoned prior to January 2017.

[In the first five months of 2025, PA Environment Digest has reported DEP issued 228 notices of violation to conventional well owners for abandoning and not plugging wells they own. Read more here.

[In December 2022, DEP issued a special report on conventional oil and gas well owner compliance that said there is a “culture of non-compliance” in the industry that results in the routine abandonment of oil and gas wells without plugging them. Read more here.

[In April 2023, the On April 24, the Environmental Defense Fund announced the results of a new study that found 55,000 oil and gas wells owned by operators in Pennsylvania are at high risk of becoming abandoned leaving state taxpayers holding the bag for $3.7 billion in well plugging and cleanup costs. Read more here.

[The overwhelming majority of these wells are conventional oil and gas wells.

[“There's all the incentive in the world for those operators to walk away,” said Adam Peltz, EDF Senior Attorney for Energy Transition. “If they're bankruptcy-proof, then the state can't get them and they save all the money unplugging.”

[The study also found another 51,000 wells owned by solvent operators are at risk of being transferred to new financially unhealthy companies because the net present value of the wells is negative. The state taxpayer liability for these wells is an estimated $3.5 billion.

[“Solvent operators are not going to orphan [abandon] the wells because they're solvent. And if you abandon a well and you're solvent, someone's going to come get you,” said Peltz. “But what those operators are incentivized to do is transfer the wells down the value chain until they get to a low solvency entity that might then go bankrupt.”

[Only 11,500 wells were determined to be of no risk of being abandoned in Pennsylvania, according to the EDF study. Read more here.]

Rep. Jack Rader, Jr. (R-Monroe), Minority Chair of the Committee, said-- “I agree with some of what you're saying, but how many abandoned wells [do] you think we'll have if we put companies out of business? It'll skyrocket, and this won't solve the problem if we overcharge.

“So we are getting federal [taxpayer] money [to plug conventional wells]. Whenever you get government involved in finding solutions, that's when we usually have an issue,” said Rep. Rader. “They probably can be capped for a lot less than what the government thinks they can be capped for, and I would rather see the industry and government work together to try and find a solution to this problem that works for both. I don't think this bill does that.

“That's the only reason I'm against it. We have an issue, we need to solve that, but I don't think this bill does that,” said Rep. Rader.

[DEP reported at the June 12 hearing Rep. Rader did not attend-- “DEP continues to seek other avenues to make improvements to programs designed to reduce future orphaned well burdens, such as alternative funding mechanisms for orphaned well programs to protect taxpayers from assuming additional liabilities, and reforms to programs relating to well transfer or temporary abandonment, as noted above.” Read more here.

[One alternative, roundly rejected by the conventional industry in meetings with DCED’s PA Grade Crude Development Advisory Council was to enact a ‘life insurance policy’ for plugging conventional wells to involve private industry in solving the well abandonment problem. Read more here.

[Conventional oil and gas well owner simply want to changes in the way things are now because they think the current system is working fine, something Tyler Q. Martin, Environmental Care Coordinator at Cameron Energy Company, a large conventional oil and gas well owner, said during the June 12 hearing. Read more here.

[For example, conventional well owners are not required to put up any well plugging bonds for wells drilled before April 18, 1985, which is most of them.]

Reaction

Melissa Ostroff, Earthworks Policy and Field Advocate for Pennsylvania, issued this statement on the Committee action--

“We essentially do not have financial assurance for oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. Bonding levels are so low that operators are going bankrupt, abandoning wells routinely, and leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill to clean up industry’s mess.

“This pollution impacts the health of communities who live with leaking oil and gas infrastructure in backyards, schoolyards, and parks.

“Pennsylvanians should be proud to have elected officials like Chairman Greg Vitali and others who are fighting to defend the right to clean air and water in our Commonwealth by proactively addressing this industry-wide problem.

“I applaud the Committee for taking this first step, and look forward to working with House members to move this bill forward.”

Rep. Greg Vitali (D-Delaware) serves as Majority Chair of the House Environmental & Natural Resource Protection Committee and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7647 or sending email to: gvitali@pahouse.net. Rep. Jack Rader, Jr. (R-Monroe) serves as Minority Chair and can be contacted by calling 717-787-7732 or click here to send an email.

Resource Links - Oil & Gas Industry Compliance History:

-- DEP: Widespread Non-Compliance With Environmental Laws Continues In Conventional Oil & Gas Industry; 3,108+ Abandoned Wells; At Least 85% Conventional Well Owners Fail To Submit Production, Waste, Well Integrity Reports [6.12.25]

-- DEP Report Finds: Conventional Oil & Gas Drillers Routinely Abandon Wells; Fail To Report How Millions Of Gallons Of Waste Is Disposed; And Non-Compliance Is An ‘Acceptable Norm’ [December 2022]

-- House Hearing: Let’s Work Together To Make Conventional Oil & Gas Industry Practices Cleaner, Respect Property Rights, Protect Taxpayers And Prevent New Abandoned Wells [4.24.23]

-- EDF: Pennsylvania Has 55,000 Oil/Gas Wells At High Risk Of Being Abandoned; 51,000 Wells At Risk Of Being Transferred To Low Solvency Owners; Current Conventional Well Owners Abandon 561 Wells A Year, On Average [4.24.23]

-- Late Night Dumping II: Conventional Oil & Gas Wastewater Dumping Continues On Roads, This Time With Bigger Trucks; New Research On Harmful Wastewater Impacts [5.22.25]

-- New Report: Shale Gas Industry Expected To Drill 8,400 More Wells In PA; 171 Shale Wells Abandoned So Far; Shale Well Plugging Expected To Cost Up To $8.5 Billion [PaEN]

-- AG Shapiro: Grand Jury Finds Pennsylvania Failed To Protect Citizens During Natural Gas Fracking Boom [June 2022]

-- Criminal Convictions; Record Penalties, Restitution Of Over $158.3 Million Highlight Big Shale Gas, Related Petrochemical Industry Compliance History In Pennsylvania [March 2025]

-- DEP Reports 575 Water Supply/Stray Gas Complaints About Oil & Gas Operations In Last 2 Years; Investigation Can Take A Year, Sometimes 2-3 To Find Those Responsible [March 2025]

-- Daily Grind Living Next To Oil & Gas Industry: Spills, Polluted Water Supplies, Smells Like Gas, Noise, Air Pollution, Explosions, Truck Traffic, Erosion, Radioactive Waste, Gas Flares, Dust, Lights, Road Dumping Waste, Abandoned Wells [March 2025]

-- 7 Years Ago, People From Over 70 Households Gave First-Hand Accounts Of How The PA Shale Gas Industry Impacted Their Health, Lives And Communities To A State Grand Jury Describing The ‘Sometimes Harsh Reality’ Of These Operations [PaEN]