Carbon dioxide is by far the largest contributor to climate change, and it comes from recognizable fossil fuel sources such as coal-burning utilities, and automobile tailpipes. Carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, making the climate change it causes not just a current problem, but a future one as well.

But experts say that methane (CH₄) is a bigger problem than carbon dioxide (CO₂).  While methane dissipates naturally after about 100 years, its pound for pound impact is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide in trapping heat reflected from the Earth’s surface.

Agriculture, including raising of cattle for human consumption and management of animal wastes, is the single largest source of methane. Natural gas and petroleum systems are the second largest source. The U.S. oil and gas industry emits more methane than the total emissions of greenhouse gases from 164 countries combined. These emissions come from leaks in the production and transmission infrastructure, and from leaking unplugged abandoned wells.

Drilling Down on Gas Wells

Oil and gas drilling in West Virginia has been ongoing for 140 years. A huge number of wells were drilled and then abandoned before anyone noticed or cared. While the WV Department of Environmental Protection estimates there are 6,500 orphaned wells in the state, that doesn’t account for the tens of thousands of undocumented wells the West Virginia Geological Survey estimates are scattered throughout our hills and valleys.

Neither orphaned nor abandoned wells produce oil or gas. Abandoned wells still have a solvent owner, while orphaned wells do not, often because the operator has gone out of business. In that case, the responsibility of plugging and remediating these wells falls to the state – and to us as taxpayers.

The Biden Administration’s massive Infrastructure Act provides for funding the orphan well problem. West Virginia will receive $25 million in a first tranche, which should be sufficient to plug 160 of the worst problem wells. We can qualify for more later. All this money is to be used to plug existing orphaned wells, but we are on our own when it comes to preventing future orphans.

Future orphan wells are certain to be created because of the economic structure of the industry. There are 3,163 “producing” wells in West Virginia, those that are producing enough to fund proper upkeep. When those wells near the end of their useful life they are often sold to operators lower on the food chain, who strip the final production capacity from them. There are estimated to be 55,823 “stripper” wells in West Virginia. They produce so little that the operator keeps them alive, sometimes for many years, to avoid clean-up costs.

And the clean-up costs for plugging a well are substantial. The DEP estimates the cost for hiring a contractor to plug a well with concrete to a significant depth is about $125,000. When depleted wells are transferred from the big solvent operators to the marginal ones, the plugging obligation is also transferred. To get a permit to operate a stripper well, the new operator merely needs to obtain a bond worth $5,000. This makes the economic choice starkly in favor of abandoning the well at the end of its life and forfeiting the bond, rather than undertaking the proper plugging.

Why Can’t the Legislature Fix This? 

Bills to adjust the economic incentives for an operator to plug a well have been introduced at the Legislature each of the last six years, but none of them has even made it onto the agenda of the responsible legislative committee.

This year Del. Evan Hansen (Monongalia) and three others have introduced HB 5414, which would condition the issuance of a permit upon the operator either (1) contributing to a plugging escrow fund from out of the cash flow produced by the well, or (2) posting a bond in an amount set by the DEP sufficient to cover the real cost of plugging. Upon its introduction, HB 5414 was assigned to the House Committee on Energy and Manufacturing, where it now sits with no action taken on it.

The Energy and Manufacturing Committee is a powerful House committee chaired by Del. Bill Anderson (Wood). Parkersburg in Wood County is close to the historic center of oil and gas activity in the state. Two other Wood County Delegates sit on the Committee – Bob Fehrenbacher and Scot Heckert.

Instead of putting HB 5414 on the committee’s agenda, Anderson, Fehrenbacher and Heckert have sponsored HB 5076. This bill would exempt operators from the obligation to plug depleted wells “promptly,” as required by law, if they have entered into an agreement with DEP regarding the schedule and details of plugging.  Most importantly, it would eliminate the possibility of lawsuits brought by landowners and other interested persons to enforce the prompt plugging obligation.

And – surprise! – there just happens to be a lawsuit like this pending against Diversified Energy, a large operator of abandoned wells in the state. The lawsuit alleges that Diversified’s business model involves purchasing many low production wells and then delaying its plugging obligation for years to avoid the costs. Whether HB 5076 would end that lawsuit isn’t clear, but it would definitely prevent any future private legal enforcement.

Instead of being stewards of our environment and our groundwater, and protecting the taxpayers of West Virginia, these legislators seem more interested in protecting big gas business. This is a tragedy that, in one form or another, is replayed in this state year after year.

In late September we were treated to a show by the far-right Chaos Caucus of the Republican Party led by Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This nearly devolved into an actual government shutdown, causing misery among people who depend on government employment. Columnist David Brooks – himself a conservative Republican — called Gaetz and his group nihilistic performance artists.

What is motivating these disrupters? The charitable explanation is that they sought some policy objective they couldn’t achieve in the normal way, although their objective changed from day to day and was never well explained. The less charitable explanation is that they sought nothing more than camera time. A recent piece in The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Gaetz’s audience and priorities are different than the rank and file Republican, “Gaetz is going for attention, TV interviews, fundraising.”

In early October a subset of disrupters caused the removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy for committing the sin of working with Democrats to pass bi-partisan funding legislation. This is the first time in our history a Speaker has been removed. Perhaps McCarthy deserved it because his word has been like sand between your fingers.  But the whole episode suggests that House Republicans can’t even govern themselves, much less help with governing the nation.

It is remarkable that the Democrats in the House are not the target of the obstructionists. It is their own party. Most Republican House members, including their leaders, didn’t want to shut down the government because they knew there would be a political price to pay and their party would pay it. And most in the House Republican caucus are furious with Gaetz and his disrupters for upending McCarthy.

It seems like any positive legislative proposal these days must endure a gauntlet filled with warlords and highwaymen ready to exact a ransom. We can all agree that obstructionist grandstanding and political extortion is not governing. But what type of governing behavior do we have a right to expect from elected officials of both parties?

The answer is squarely in front of us. This country is supposed to operate on majoritarian principles. The exceptions are the minority protections carved out in the Bill of Rights and the design of the U.S. Senate, which gives tiny states the same representation as enormous ones.

Legislation should move, or not move, based on whether there is a majority of legislators supporting it. The House of Representatives has 435 members, while the Chaos Caucus is only 10 representing a mere 2% of the population. If a legislator isn’t in the majority on an issue, then her task is to persuade others to change their views, not throw a wrench into the works because she can’t get her way.

Political hostage taking and obstructionism is simply not acceptable governing behavior. Temper tantrums should get no respect.

The hostage taking is not limited to the House of Representatives. It is also taking place in the Senate and even in the Jefferson County Commission.  Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has held up 300 military promotions for weeks because he is trying to force a policy change at the Pentagon. Tuberville, of course, can’t claim to be governing. Nobody thinks his one-man blockade is a great idea and his own party will soon put a stop to it.

The extortionists and performance artists on the national stage have gotten so much attention that now some Jefferson County Commissioners have copied their behavior. Two out of four Commissioners showed up for business at the September 21, 28 and October 5 meetings. The other two – Tricia Jackson and Jennifer Krouse – made themselves absent to deny the Commission a quorum. They claimed this was in protest of an abuse of power by Commission President Stolipher, who failed to put two items on the agenda they wanted. No County business was transacted because Jackson and Krouse didn’t get their way. That was really mature, wasn’t it?

Good governance can’t be defined by referring to a particular policy outcome, say tightened border security or the enactment of an environmental law. Historically, the policy objectives of both the left and the right have been achieved through good governance. That is because good governance is a process, not a particular outcome. It is about respect for institutions. Good governance is building, not destroying. It is about persuasion and coalition building, not extortion.