Tell decision makers it’s time for industry to finally clean up after itself!

A crisis of unreclaimed and under-bonded oil & gas wells is growing across the West, threatening American taxpayers with liability in the billions and landowners with increasing risk to their land and water. While this crisis is growing, common-sense solutions can still prevent a catastrophe.

Right now, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) is working on new rules to guarantee that oil & gas operators comply with all of the regulations put in place, including properly plugging oil & gas wells at the end of their lives to avoid harmful, toxic pollution.

These “guarantees” (called financial assurances) essentially act as security deposits — they include oil & gas operators being required to pay the state money, called “bonds,” toward the eventual costs of plugging wells, and cleaning up toxic spills. Unfortunately, Colorado’s current financial assurance rules are grossly inadequate. Oil and gas companies aren’t paying anywhere near the true cost of cleaning up wells and the public is stuck with cleanup costs. We need your help to ensure the cleanup of wells should be a basic cost of doing business in the oil and gas industry.

This fall, we have a chance to correct these problems, and to hold the industry accountable. The COGCC has released a first draft of the new rules addressing bonding, and the hearing will start on September 21, and continue through early October.

Let’s urge the COGCC to require oil & gas operators to pay their full cleanup costs. Tell the commissioners we demand full cost bonding today!

P.S. If you would like to learn more, Carbon Tracker has put together an excellent resource on how little the Colorado oil and gas industry has paid to clean up their mess.