The U.S. Department of the Interior late last month announced $1.15 billion in funding available to states  to create jobs cleaning up orphaned oil and gas wells across the country. The money comes as part of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated a total of $4.7 billion to create a new federal program to address orphan wells. 

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling us to confront the legacy pollution and long-standing environmental injustices that for too long have plagued underrepresented communities,” says Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. “We must act with urgency to address the more than one hundred thousand documented orphaned wells across the country and leave no community behind. This is good for our climate, for the health our communities, and for American workers.”