Oil and gas companies get another year to put up cash for cleanup

The US Land Management Bureau is giving oil and gas companies an extra year to increase the amount of money they set aside for cleaning up old wells. This means companies now have until June 2027 to meet the new $500,000 minimum for statewide cleanup bonds.

For years, the amount of money oil and gas companies had to set aside for cleaning up their sites was too low. This meant taxpayers often paid for environmental damage when companies went bankrupt. This rule change was supposed to fix that, but now the industry gets more time to comply, delaying the shift of cleanup costs back to the companies themselves.