Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation that I am proud to see passed on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, the bipartisan Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act. Across the country, there are around 3 million abandoned oil and gas wells in urgent need of remediation or plugging.

In Pennsylvania, there are well over 350,000 abandoned wells, but only 27,000 of these have been identified and documented in order to be plugged.

These abandoned wells not only contribute to the climate crisis by leaking methane, but they also expose our families to cancer-causing toxins like benzene, leave our homes vulnerable to explosive gases, and lower property values making it tougher for families to maintain and sell their homes.

Our region's health and economy suffer while we allow these wells to pollute our communities without accountability or plans to plug them.

Last month, I visited the home of Pamela and Ivan Schrank, a couple in Murrysville, who recently discovered a leaky, abandoned well on their property in Westmoreland County.

During my visit, Pamela described how she got dizzy and almost fainted while gardening in her backyard after being exposed to the pungent odor she recognized as gas. Fortunately, she and her husband, Ivan, caught the leakage in time to reach out to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to begin the process of plugging the well and preventing permanent harm to their family's health and the value of their property. However, until Congress takes action to invest in the identification and remediation of abandoned wells starting with the passage of this bill, tens of thousands of people in my district and across Pennsylvania will continue to suffer the consequences.

Pennsylvania has more abandoned wells than any other State except Texas. Many of these wells that pollute our communities were drilled in the mid-1800s, decades before regulations existed to properly track and document them.

My district already suffers from some of the worst air quality in the Nation and serious rates of exposure to toxins in our water. These communities also suffer from high rates of asthma or COPD and exposure to lead in our water.

We can't leave leaky oil and gas wells from the 1800s to continue poisoning and endangering our communities. We also can't afford inaction. We must invest significant resources to research and develop solutions to this crisis by passing our bipartisan bill because, until we do, it will remain nearly impossible to track every orphaned and abandoned well and too expensive to plug or remediate them.

This bipartisan bill we have introduced builds on the $23 million worth of Federal investments to plug abandoned wells we have already delivered to western Pennsylvania from the infrastructure act by authorizing a new research, development, and demonstration program at the Department of Energy to locate, identify, and address the problems associated with abandoned oil and gas wells.

This program will enhance our ability to locate these wells and direct research toward improving remediation, plugging, and understanding what causes some of these wells to become super emitters, posing the most harm to our health and our climate. It will also fuel the development of new uses for these wells, such as evaluating whether they are suitable for conversion to geothermal power production.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member Lofgren for supporting this legislation, as well as Representative Bice for joining me in championing this issue for bringing this important bipartisan bill to the floor.

Today, the Science Committee has now twice unanimously approved this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

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Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4877, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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