PA Environment Digest Blog: PA Supreme Court Rules No Republican Senate, House Members Can Intervene In Legal Challenge To Act 96 That Took Away Authority To Increase Conventional Oil & Gas Well Bond Amounts To Cover Taxpayer Costs For Plugging

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

PA Supreme Court Rules No Republican Senate, House Members Can Intervene In Legal Challenge To Act 96 That Took Away Authority To Increase Conventional Oil & Gas Well Bond Amounts To Cover Taxpayer Costs For Plugging

On August 4, 2025, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied efforts by all PA Senate Republicans and all PA House Republicans to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a law that took away the authority to increase conventional oil and gas well plugging bond amounts to cover taxpayer costs of plugging wells they abandon.

Republicans supported taking away the authority to increase bonding.

[Conventional oil and gas well owners continue to abandon their wells as a routine business practice that continues the industry’s culture of noncompliance, according to DEP. Read more here.

[So far in 2025, conventional oil and gas well owners received 343 notices of violations for abandoning their wells. Read more here.]

In August of 2023, PennFuture, the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, Protect Penn-Trafford, and Earthworks filed a joint lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, including Governor Josh Shapiro and the General Assembly, to challenge Act 96, a 2022 law that removed the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board authority to adjust well bonding amounts and capped the amount for conventional wells at just $2,500 per well.

These bond amounts are well below the actual taxpayer costs of plugging a conventional well which can range from $33,000 to $800,000-- average is $68,000-- to prevent harms to communities and the environment.

The individual Republican legislators and the Republican caucuses sought to intervene in the case, despite clear and recent state and federal precedent that limits the ability of individual legislators, who have the power to vote on laws and their own branch of government, to intervene into legal challenges or bring lawsuits of their own.

On July 1, 2024, the Commonwealth Court denied the Application to Intervene. The legislators and caucuses appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who issued a per curiam order affirming the Commonwealth Court’s decision to deny the intervention.

“We are pleased that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held firm on this basic legal principle that ensures our separate powers continue to act as checks and balances against each other,” said Emma Bast, staff attorney at PennFuture. “Pennsylvania’s highest court recently held in Allegheny Reproductive Health Center that there are plain limits on the ability of a legislator to intervene in a lawsuit, and this decision is simple and consistent with that precedent. We are pleased to move forward in this joint effort to fight for basic environmental protections for our members and their communities."

Rose Monahan, attorney at Sierra Club, noted “This is a strong step forward in a case that is really about Pennsylvanians’ having avenues to avoid taxpayers being on the hook to clean up the gas industry's mess, and ensure communities can be kept clean and healthy.”

“This litigation is about our state's Constitution, and that Republic legislators sought to rewrite fundamental principles of our Constitution so they can get their individual way is not how democracy works. We commend our Supreme Court for quickly recognizing this attempt and for denying their intervention based on core Constitutional principles and years of caselaw," said Lauren Otero, Staff Attorney at the Clean Air Council.

The case, Clean Air Council et al. v. Commonwealth, 379 MAP 2023, will now continue at the Commonwealth Court, where PennFuture, the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, Protect Penn-Trafford, and Earthworks will resume their joint effort to ensure adequate well bonding amounts to plug oil and gas wells.

A scheduling order has not yet been issued by the Court.

Click Here for the PennFuture announcement.

Resource Links:

-- 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’ [PaEN]

-- DEP: 768 Abandoned Conventional Oil & Gas Wells May Be Plugged In Next Year; Over 27,000 New Abandoned Wells May Have Been Found; Alternatives To Well Plugging Bonds [PaEN]

-- 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 [PaEN]

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

-- Warren Times Editorial: Pennsylvania Needs A New Plan For Abandoned Conventional Oil & Gas Wells; Increasing Bond Amounts Only Part Of Solution [PaEN]

-- Williamsport Sun Editorial: Pennsylvania Needs A New Plan For Abandoned Conventional Oil & Gas Wells; Increasing Bond Amounts Only Part Of Solution [PaEN]

-- Post-Gazette Editorial: Oil & Gas Companies Need Greater Incentives To Plug Their Old Wells - Raise Bond Rates Upfront For Plugging [PaEN]

-- EQB No Longer Has Statutory Authority To Change Conventional Oil & Gas Well Bonding Amounts To Help Prevent 400 to 600 New Well Abandonments A Year; Adopts Proposed Changes To Water Quality Standards For Comment [PaEN]

-- Who’s Protecting Taxpayers? House Republicans Pass Bill Exempting Conventional Oil & Gas Wells From Plugging Bonds Sticking Taxpayers With $5.1 Billion In Cleanup Liability [PaEN]