Adam Peltz: Energy Exchange

By Adam Peltz and Meg Coleman New Mexico’s legislators have a remarkable opportunity in the coming days to protect New Mexico families, businesses and the environment by revising the antiquated Oil and Gas Act with House Bill 133.  What’s currently at stake is who will pay for the billions of dollars-worth of well plugging and […]

New research from Colorado State University reveals significant quantities of methane leaking from the state’s orphaned oil and gas wells — an urgent problem for the state to address as the number of abandoned oil and gas wells have surged in recent months. This study underlines the importance of both the state’s efforts to plug […]

The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources has finalized new rules to help improve management of 17,000 non-productive oil and gas wells by encouraging their proper closure —an action that will create jobs, raise property values across the state and facilitate new clean energy projects.   Louisiana has a long history of oil and gas development, […]

Last year, for the first time, EDF and McGill University mapped every existing documented orphan well across our country. Shortly after, Congress passed the Infrastructure and Investment Act, IIJA, which included $4.7 billion to document, plug and remediate orphan wells.  This new funding, secured through EDF’s leadership, provides federal support for the first time for […]

  In the fall of 2021, after much effort by EDF and other stakeholders, Congress included $4.7 billion in funding as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to close as many “orphan” wells as possible, with a focus on leaky wells near communities. Last week, the first of these wells was plugged […]

An ongoing methane leak involving several long-term idle wells in Southern California is raising safety concerns for nearby residents and highlights an important climate issue. Southern California has some of the worst air quality in the country, and leaks like these compound the negative impacts on some of the country’s most vulnerable populations. Both in […]

The bipartisan infrastructure bill currently under debate in Washington includes a new, $4.7 billion program to address a significant environmental legacy of the fossil fuel industry — the plugging and remediating of orphan oil and gas wells. Orphan wells have no owner, so the cleanup liability falls largely to the public. Nearly 60,000 such wells […]

After over 150 years of boom and bust oil and gas development, there are over a million inactive, unplugged oil and gas wells across the country. A new study published in the journal Elementa describes how, when not properly plugged, these wells can contaminate groundwater and emit methane as well as harmful chemicals into the […]

There are nearly a million active oil and gas wells in the United States, and if not correctly designed and maintained, they can leak harmful substances that will irreversibly pollute our land, air and water. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at data from over 100,000 wells […]

More than 30 states actively regulate oil and gas development with a variety of practices and rules designed to reduce health, safety and environmental impacts. States engage in a process of continuous improvement by adopting new rules and practices as technologies and risk mitigation techniques evolve — even in an extraordinary year like 2020. EDF […]

The United States onshore oil and gas industry operates nearly one million production wells across 30 states. To protect our health and environment, these wells must be designed, constructed, operated, maintained and closed in a way that prevents leaks and explosions. To help regulators keep current on leading practices for protecting our environment from the […]

The state of Colorado is poised to adopt some of the nation’s most sophisticated and protective regulations designed to prevent its 60,000 oil and gas wells from leaking or exploding. Colorado has a history of leading on oil and gas regulatory issues to reduce risks to families, workers and the environment, including the nation’s first […]

In recent years, Pennsylvania has become an epicenter of the nation’s hydraulic fracturing boom. But even as production from “unconventional” wells – those using horizontal drilling and fracking – has grown, nearly 90% of the state’s 120,000 active wells are older, “conventional” vertical ones that typically rely on traditional drilling methods. What does that mean […]

A new rule goes into effect today that will help protect California’s groundwater. The rule applies to injection wells – the underground facilities that enable enhanced oil recovery and the long-term disposal of the oil industry’s wastewater. California has around 55,000 oilfield injection wells, nearly one-third of the nation’s total, and the state’s oil industry […]

Three years ago, a blowout at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility forced thousands of nearby families to evacuate their homes and leaked over 100,000 tons of methane and other harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. The facility’s operator, Southern California Gas, wasn’t prepared for the scope or scale of the disaster that unfolded over […]

A recent report is helping shine a spotlight on three emerging issues facing the oil and gas industry and the agencies that regulate development practices. The triennial report, funded by a consortium of government, industry and nonprofit stakeholders including EDF, was developed by the Ground Water Protection Council, an organization of state regulators working to […]

More than a year and a half after the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility caused more than 100,000 tons of methane to leak into the atmosphere – amounting to be our nation’s largest-ever gas leak,  California regulators continue to labor away at improving the rules  that could prevent another gas storage disaster. That leak […]

Across the U.S. more than 15 million people live within a mile of an oil or gas well – and a new app is making it easier for those people to know exactly where those wells are located within their neighborhoods. The WellFinder app uses data from state agencies to help users know not only […]

Today, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and the Ground Water Protection Council published a new report entitled “Underground Gas Storage Regulatory Considerations: A Guide for State and Federal Regulatory Agencies.” Like the title says, the report helps regulators make decisions that will ultimately make gas storage facilities across the country safer and more […]

Stories about gas storage rarely make headlines, but the fact is there are hundreds of underground natural gas storage facilities peppered across the country, and when something goes wrong, the impacts can be devastating. For example, in 2015 a leak at the Aliso Canyon storage facility in Southern California ended up displacing thousands from their […]