Oil and gas wells: hazardous or idle-deserted wells and facilities.

(1) Existing law establishes the Geologic Energy Management Division in the Department of Conservation, under the direction of the State Oil and Gas Supervisor, who is required to supervise the drilling, operation, maintenance, and abandonment of wells and the operation, maintenance, and removal or abandonment of tanks and facilities related to oil and gas production within an oil and gas field, so as to prevent damage to life, health, property, and natural resources. Under existing law, the current operator, or the previous operator, as provided, as determined by the records of the supervisor, of a deserted well that produced oil, gas, or other hydrocarbons or was used for injection is responsible for the proper plugging and abandonment of the well or the decommissioning of deserted production facilities. If the supervisor determines that the current operator does not have the financial resources to fully cover the cost of plugging and abandoning the well or the decommissioning of deserted production facilities, existing law requires the immediately preceding operator to be responsible for the cost of plugging and abandoning the well or the decommissioning of deserted production facilities. This bill would require the supervisor to provide specified committees of the Legislature by July 1, 2022, with the process the supervisor has established to determine that the current operator does not have the financial resources to fully cover the cost of plugging and abandoning the well or the decommissioning of deserted production facilities, or for a previous operator. The bill would require the supervisor to, in a timely manner, post the materials provided to the legislative committees on a public portion of the division's internet website. (2) Existing law requires the supervisor, on or before July 1, 2019, and annually thereafter until July 1, 2026, to prepare and transmit to the Legislature a comprehensive report on the status of idle and long-term idle wells for the preceding calendar year that includes specified information. For the report due on or before July 1, 2021, and for each report thereafter, existing law requires the division to conduct inspections of production facilities attendant to long-term idle wells and requires that information summarizing violations and pertinent findings in these inspections be included in each report. For the report due on or before July 1, 2022, and for each report thereafter, this bill would require that each report identify idle wells by the American Petroleum Institute identification number that are registered to an operator and that have met the definition of an idle well for 3 years where neither the required annual fee has been paid or the well is part of a valid idle well management plan on file with the supervisor. (3) Existing law requires the department to report to the Legislature on April 1, 2021, on the number of hazardous wells, idle-deserted wells, deserted facilities, and hazardous facilities remaining, the estimated costs of abandoning or decommissioning those wells and facilities, and a timeline for future abandonment and decommissioning of those wells and facilities with a specific schedule of goals. Existing law requires the department to provide an update on the report to the Legislature on October 1, 2023, that describes the total costs, average costs per well and facility, the number of wells plugged and abandoned, the number of facilities decommissioned, the total number of projects completed, and any additional wells and facilities identified by the department requiring abandonment or decommissioning. This bill would require the department to report the location of hazardous wells, idle-deserted wells, deserted facilities, and hazardous facilities remaining, including the county in which they are located, to the Legislature by April 1, 2022, if the information is not otherwise included in the April 1, 2021, report. The bill would require the October 1, 2023, update to include the location, including the county, of applicable wells, facilities, and projects identified in the report. The bill would require the division to consider certain information reported to the Legislature when developing criteria for determining the priority of plugging and abandoning hazardous or idle-deserted wells and decommissioning hazardous or deserted facilities to be remediated. (4) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 3206.3 of the Public Resources Code proposed by AB 896 to be operative only if this bill and AB 896 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. The bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 3258 of the Public Resources Code to be operative only if this bill and SB 47 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.