What Manchin Got for Backing Democrats' Climate Bill

So it's pretty rare, maybe even unheard of, for us to talk about the same topic in two consecutive episodes. But after last week's podcast on the death of the Democratic climate agenda, we couldn't just leave you hanging give

him what went down after that. As you probably heard by now, Democratic leaders have come to an agreement with Senator Joe Mansion of West Virginia, the most conservative member of their caucus and a crucial vote to pass well pretty much anything in barring an unexpected but entirely possible snaffoo, it looks like Congress is poisons and a big environmental package to the President's desk. So today we're gonna talk about how this happened, and more importantly, what's actually in

that package. With Boomberg Law reporter Bobby McGill. Bobby's also going to talk about a big investigative story he did recently about orphan oil and gas wells that are oozing out toxic substances in many backyards across the country. First, though, I had to ask him about the Democratic Deal and specifically about why Senator Mansion decided to do a one eighty.

I think what happened was, you know, Mansion got some some of what he wanted in terms of fossil fuels, and there was this side deal that Um he struck with Schumer Um to permit the six point six billion dollar Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is a gas pipeline that goes across West Virginia. And so he's getting some things that he's long champions and are going to benefit his state. So, you know, last week when we were on the podcast, we talked about what his true intentions were. He said

that he wasn't supporting this because of inflation concerns. But you know, we also know that Senator Mansion has very close ties to the fossil fuel industry. I'm gonna ask that question again, what was this? You know, did he change his mind because he had his inflation fears allayed by economists and other people. Or is this really just horse trading? You know, he just said, I just want more. I can get more, and I'm going to support this bill if I get more. I don't really, I don't

really know. Um, and I think that you know, you kind of have to look at what he's getting out of this, and um, you know, this isn't necessarily subsidies for the coal industry necessarily, So it's it's it's other things. I think it might be the you know, he's he's long, um, you know, championed continued reliance on fossil fuels and and

he's getting that. Okay, so we're gonna get into that in a little bit, but let's start off with, uh, the climate measures that are in this new package that Mansion and Senate Democrats in the White House agreed to. What exactly UH is in this? Um? You know, if this does end up becoming law, what what what climate measures will be being there? Well, it's kind of a

big deal. Um. You know. It includes dollars in oil industry taxes, including increased taxes on oil imports and um an oil refining tax to ensure you know, that hazardous waste is cleaned up. UM. It includes um in uh tax credits for electric vehicles, and it scraps uh kind of an odd exclusion for high selling electric vehicles. That's

that's right, and I think, uh, that's really important. As we discussed on our sister podcast, Talking Tax, Tesla and other automakers had reached the cap they sold too many electric vehicles to be eligible for for these tax credits. Now that cap has gone, so now you can once again, if you buy a Tesla, you can get a tax credit from the federal government as a result of this.

And that's not all it does. I mean beyond electric vehicles it um you know, there's their rebates available to install heat pumps in your house to to make your homes, your your house more energy efficient. Revives solar tax credit for rooftop solar. It's you know, it goes a long way to making houses much more efficient, which was a you know, inefficient homes or a huge source of greenhouts gas emissions. So I get this sense. There's a lot of what some I consider smaller things in this UM.

You know, they're not small to the people who benefit from them or to the industries that they affect. But you know, this started off much much much bigger than than it was before. Um, you know it's what I'm not hearing our emissions caps, you know on on really big polluting industries. Well not only you're not hearing that, you're you're you know, seeing some potential expansion of you know, polluting industries, including the oily mainly the oil gas industry.

So you know, it's it's a mixed bag, to be sure. So yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because let's get into that now, which is, uh, as we mentioned, what did Mansion, Senator Mansion get as a result of supporting this this package. So in addition to the climate measures, there are also a lot of pro fossil fuel provisions in this package. Let's get into that. Well. I think ultimately what this is going to do is sort of, uh, you know, force the market to determine the future of

fossil fuels. And the way this works is that it's tying uh future renewables development on federal land and waters, so offshore wind for example, to um fossil fuels leasing specifically oil and gas leasing and so you know the Tacco messages, the the Interior Department can't permit wind and solar projects without first holding oil and gas lease sales, and so this is tied um renewables to fossil fuels for the very first time. And it's the thing that it's the reason that you see in a lot of

environmental groups calling this the poison pill. Well, so I want to get into that because you and I have talked before on this podcast about federal leasing up for oil and gas and how the Trump administration really wanted to get more and more lands out there that at least the Biden administration wanted to. I mean, this is probably exaggeration, but at least no lands for oil and

gas leasing. Um, it's not an exaggeration. Okay, So how much interest is there because you know, oil prices are high right now, but they could be coming back down if there's a recession. Is there enough interest that there are people want to bid on these lands and want to bid on federal oil and gas trailing. Well, it's complicated because you know the thing about so the administration, the Biden administration has been forced to hold forced by a court to hold at least one series of oil

and gas lease sales. There was definitely interest there, but it was like it was pretty middling. But part of that was that the industry knows that, you know, the future of leasing on federal lands is uncertain, and that's one of the things that this bill does. It it's sort of you know, gives them a little bit more certainty. Um. But you know, prior to the Biden administration, what you were seeing was a lot of interest in leasing, and

a lot of it was speculation. U in places like Nevada, where there's not a lot of oil and gas to be produced, there's a tiny bit but um, but you still had a lot of interest in places like Wyoming and North Dakota, and especially southeast New Mexico and Southeast New Mexico is really I mean, that's part of the Permian Basin. That's kind of kind of where it's at

right now with with oil and gas production. So, but could we see a situation where, you know, because oil and gas leasing is now tied to renewable leasing, so every time the Interior Department wants to lease some land for renewable energy, they also have to you know, lease some land for fossil fuels. Could we see this situation where supply and demand gets way out of whack and the supply is like way outstrips demand, and you see these oil and gas leases go for like pennies on

the dollar. Well, you're already seeing oil and gas leases go for pennies on the dollar. Um. You know, the most recent oil and gastly sale, there were a bunch that were that sold for the minimum bid, which was two dollars an acre. So um. But you know, you're you're seeing a lot of interest in areas that have that have proven um oil and gas deposits. So again, like the Permanent Basin or the Baking shale up in North Dakota. So let's get back to this bill. Uh,

it hasn't passed. Its chances are pretty good now that Center Mansion has signed on. But anything could happen, of course, and one of those things is that environmentalists could choose to oppose this bill. I mean, one of the folks that we quoted in our story called this a climate suicide pact because of all of the fossil fuel provisions here. Do you think that if environmentalists come out hard against this,

that they could stop it from from passing. Well, there's no evidence that environmentalists are actually going to do that because, UM, you know, it's just judging by the press releases I've seen in my my email inbox, there's a number of groups that are that are calling for uh, you know, support for this bill, and there are others like the Center for Biological Diversity calling these you know, oil and

gas provisions a poison pill in this bill. Um. You know, there's there's some truth to that because if you paid attention to UM climate science, you know that we've got to reduce screenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. UM. The question is like how much if you're tying wind development to UM fossil fuels development on federal lands, you know, how much is that going to make a difference? Like most most oil and gas production in the US comes

from private lands. So UM, it's unclear. So it seems like the uh, you know, a united environmentalist movement against this bill might kill it. But the environ anialist movements, based on what you just said, is definitely not united against this move bill. It's not united, um, and uh it's it's going to be fascinating to watch. Finally, I wanted to talk about another story that you just wrote, which I thought was really fantastic. Orphan oil and gas wells.

And these are oil and gas wells that at one point produced but are not anymore, but have not really been sealed up and are still you know, have harmful chemicals trickling out of them. Tell me first off, tell me a little bit about what's going on there and are is there going to be more money to help seal up these wells? Yeah? So, UM there's uh four point seven billion dollars in the Infrastructure Law to UM that was passed last year to help to clean up

these wells. There are millions of these wells nationwide, and the issue with these wells is that they are a huge source of methane emissions that contribute to climate change. A lot of these are unplugged UM and there are also a source of water pollution UM and you know, they could potentially explode your house if you have one. UM. Most of these are in Appalachia. Were mostly though not completely talking about older wells that have been around for

a hundred years. There's plenty of newer ones to UM, especially in the West, but you know, The focus of this is is in you know, places like Pennsylvania where the oil and gas industry was born in the US back in the late eighteen fifties. UM, and uh like places like New York and Kentucky and West Virginia and Ohio. UM. But you also have a lot of these abandoned wells

in in Texas and New Mexico and Oklahoma in those places. Yeah, And you went to McKean County, Pennsylvania and spoke with cheryld Thomas, who hasn't abandoned oil well on her property and let's hear from her now, ums, forty yards right there, not even forty yards and this is going into the water table somehow, coming up out of the ground and hitting a crick. This is a direct tributary to Allegheny River. So that was Cheryl Thomas in McKean County, Pennsylvania. Is

there gonna be enough money to uh to to fix this? Uh? You just mentioned there's a lot of money in the infrastructure bill last year. Is that enough? The answer is no, And there probably won't be enough ever to uh to locate all of these wells because a lot of them people don't know where they are. UM. They know where maybe twenty seven thousand or so are and say Pennsylvania. Um. But um, this money just scratches the surface. And you know,

maybe Cheryl Thomas will have her well finally plugged. She said she had sixty of them on her property. Um, most of those have already been plugged, but that one just hadn't because it was going to be so expensive, you know, possibly more than a million dollars to plug that.

In other similar wells, they're really hard to get to. UM. But you know, there are just so many that you know, the Biden administration or in Congress can can throw billions of dollars at this problem, and it's it's gonna there's just there's just too many to plug. If the federal government can't afford to fix this, and I mean to say nothing of the states, um, and the private sector can't fix this because the companies that dug these wells are long gone. Who's left? I mean you know what well?

I mean this is this is the trade off. You you know, the oil and gas industry has been operating for well over a century, and you know there are long term consequences of of that kind of development. And one of those consequences is the possibility that companies are not going to um, you know, take care of their abandoned the wells that they that they're essentially leaving behind. Many of them will just walk away. And you know,

before there were regulations, that's what a lot of them did. UM. And there aren't a lot of records about who those companies were and where these wells are. UM. So it's an it's an ongoing project. The money represents progress, right, some of them are going to get and perhaps thousands of them are going to get plugged, but um, many many, many others are not. All right. That was Bobby McGill speaking with us about the Climate Bill in Congress and

abandoned oil wells. Thanks Bobby, Thank you. And that's it for today's Parts per Billion. If you want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use a pretty easy to remember handle. It's at Environment. Just that at Environment. Today's episode of Parts for Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts for Billion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Dagle and is edited by Zach Sherwood and Chuck McCutcheon. Our executive producer is Josh Block. Thanks for

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