US House bill seeks $8 billion for abandoned oil and gas well cleanup By Reuters – Investing.com

US House bill seeks $8 billion for abandoned oil and gas well cleanup By Reuters – Investing.com

© Reuters. Abandoned oil well in Olean, New York

By Nichola Groom (Reuters) - A New Mexico Democrat will introduce a bill on Thursday authorizing $8 billion to plug and clean up abandoned oil wells nationwide, a measure aimed at creating jobs for oil and gas workers and reducing climate-warming emissions. More than a century of oil and gas drilling has left behind millions of abandoned wells https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport/special-report-millions-of-abandoned-oil-wells-are-leaking-methane-a-climate-menace-idUSKBN23N1NL, many of which are emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Oil and gas companies are likely to abandon many more wells as demand for clean energy replaces that for fossil fuels. The bill, sponsored by Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, comes a week after President Joe Biden's administration unveiled a $2 trillion infrastructure plan -- dubbed the American Jobs Plan -- that called for a $16 billion investment to plug orphaned wells and clean up abandoned mines. The initiative is aimed in part at providing work for oil and gas employees likely to be displaced by a move away from fossil fuels because of climate change. The bill "does the two things that the American Jobs Plan is looking at, which is both create jobs and address some of the