Colorado oil and gas wells can’t fund their own cleanup. Taxpayers may foot the bill | A Carbon Tracker report shows the cost to safely shut down low-producing wells is $3bn more than what they earn

Optional@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 148 points – Colorado oil and gas wells can’t fund their own cleanup. Taxpayers may foot the bill
theguardian.com

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10954294

18

These are the same companies who got massive tax payer funded subsidies: So much for The Free Market I guess.

Privatized profits and socialized losses are such bullshit.

They sure are, it's almost like the free market is a made up fantasy that does not exist today (if it ever existed at all).

Its free market when a corpo fucks you...

That's about it

Maybe cleanup costs should be baked into the price of a building permit...

Yes. If your work requires environmental cleanup, you should be required to post bond to cover it.

From what I understand often they do. And often the bond isn't anywhere close to the actual costs.

So in practice they don't!

IDK about Texas, but in Alberta there's an Orphan Well fund that every company contributes to as part of their royalties that covers expected cleanup. And that's only bankrupt companies, if a solvent company shuts down a well, they pay to restore the land or the province does it and sues them for it.

It's not even that they "can't" fund their own cleanup. The put down a cleaning deposit before operations begin and just walk away when the cleanup costs more than they originally put down.

I'd say they give the finger while walking but they need their hands to count their profits

"Too big to fail" == "Too big to care".

They know that they can't be held responsible so they literally don't care about the consequences of their actions

If these companies can't afford to pay for insurance to cover their asses, then they're a failed business that shouldn't be allowed to operate.

Why pay for insurance if you can just buy some politicians? They're pretty cheap.

Ultimately, the Carbon Tracker analysts conclude, policymakers must decide between developing new, rigorous alternatives, or sending the bill to taxpayers by default. That will likely involve compelling resource-rich firms to start setting aside savings from their profits now.

Workers have taxes withheld from their paychecks. Seems fair a similar mechanism should exist for oil profits to fund orphaned-well cleanups. But -- we really need to transition away from fossil fuel entirely! Does this create a motive for the government to insure a company or two are profitable enough to subsidize all the poorer companies cleanup costs, therefore motivating increased use of fossil fuels?

I have thought about this for a while now, before any natural resource can be exploited the following needs to be done:

  1. An environmental restoration fund needs to be set up qith an initial payment and an aditional 2% of the value of the resource exploited anually throughout the life time of the facility, this money of controlled by the government and used to fund environmental restoration once the the facility is closed.
  2. 10% of the annual value of the resource extracted will go to the local government, and be spent on upkeep and quallity of life for the local citizes, 10% of the annual value of the resource extraxted will go to the country government.

In total that is 22% so the company gets to keep 78%, seems resonable to me.

I'm MUCH Happier with my Tax Dollars going to these companies first to Drill the Wells and then to Clean the Wells. It's a MUCH better use of Tax Dollars then Feeding STARVING AMERICAN CHILDREN!