Bill co-sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee to improve plugging abandoned gas wells passes U.S. House

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee’s first major bill, which could accelerate efforts to plug up to 3 million abandoned gas and oil wells across the country, cleared the House Tuesday with strong bipartisan support.

Abandoned wells leak copious amounts of methane and are a persistent problem in Western Pennsylvania.

Speaking Monday on the House floor, Lee said that the wells pose a danger to her constituents, and they need to be identified and plugged as quickly as possible.

“Tens of thousands of people in my district and across Pennsylvania will continue to be exposed to toxins in their air and water, explosive gases and lower property values,” Lee told her colleagues.

The House voted 335-73, with 202 Democrats and 133 Republicans in favor. The 73 opposed were all Republicans. Twenty-one house members did not vote on the bill.

Lee introduced the Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act with U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla.

It is Lee’s first substantial piece of legislation to clear the Republican-controlled House. Its passage comes less than a week after Lee prevailed in a contentious primary election.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate, would allocate $162 million to the U.S. Department of Energy to improve technologies and methods to plug and remediate abandoned wells.

Lee, a Democrat from Swissvale, represents Pittsburgh, its eastern and southern suburbs, as well as sections of Westmoreland County.

Proponents of the bill said there are between 700,000 and 3 million abandoned wells in America.

Pennsylvania officials are aware of about 27,000 abandoned wells in the state, and the state Department of Environmental Protection estimates there are another 350,000 that haven’t been documented.

The greater Pittsburgh area is home to a large concentration of abandoned gas wells, particularly in Westmoreland County, where the natural gas industry got its start in the late 1800s.

Lee said methane leakage from wells contributes to climate change. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is many times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Lee also shared concerns about other harmful chemicals like benzene leaking from abandoned wells.

“While active wells support hundreds of thousands of jobs, legacy sites and abandoned wells can present environmental and economic problems,” said Lee.

Bice, the Oklahoma congresswoman, said Monday on the House floor that it’s important to cut the cost of finding and plugging wells. She said the federal government already has spent $4 billion plugging abandoned wells, and the bill would result in plugging more wells for less money.

That would be a relief to Pamela Schrank of Murrysville.

Schrank said she discovered an abandoned well on her Benden Circle property only because she recently completed building a home there. She said other neighbors in the area were unaware of the well because the property was vacant before Schrank moved in last year.

Lee and other state environmental officials visited Schrank’s property in March.

The well was dug in 1905 and has never been plugged. She said gas can be smelled leaking from its spout.

“Can you imagine if someone were to flick a match near it?” she said.

Beyond the immediate dangers and air quality issues of the abandoned well, she said she is concerned about methane leaks and worsening climate change.

“I put solar panels in and we are doing organic gardening,” she said. “We really do care about ecology and the environment. This is like a kick in the butt having this well on our property.”