Op-Ed: How Congress could curtail the Big Oil gravy train (via latimesopinion)
prop up fossil fuel development, even when drilling projects should be too expensive to turn a profit. Below-market leasing rates, royalties and fees subsidize oil and gas companies, encouraging them to exploit our public lands and leaving taxpayers on the hook for the environmental damage.
In the “Build Back Better” Act, Congress has an opportunity to make oil and gas corporations play by the same rules as everyone else. The House has included common-sense oil and gas reforms in its version of the bill, and the Senate should follow suit. Taxpayers should get a fair return from oil and gas companies that drill on publicly owned lands and waters. The House bill would make this change. Right now, these polluters pay below-market rates to extract resources that belong to all Americans.. It has not been updated for more than a century, even where technological advances have reduced the financial risk of drilling.
The House’s Build Back Better Act also closes a legal loophole that leaves taxpayers, instead of oil and gas companies, on the hook for cleaning up shut-down wells. Under the current requirements, the bonding coverage that polluters purchase up front to make sure environmental remediation costs are paid doesn’t come close to covering the actual cleanup costs. In effect, that means that oil and gas companies can profit off pollution, then leave taxpayers to deal with the mess they leave behind.
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