One week after winning a primary battle for a second term, U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, saw the House pass a bill she’d sponsored and championed that takes steps toward dealing with the thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells scattered across the country.
The Abandoned Wells, Remediation, Research, and Development Act attracted bipartisan support — a rarity in the current Congress — and passed by a vote of 333-75 on Tuesday.
The legislation would authorize the U.S. Department of Energy to establish a five-year program to improve the location data it has on abandoned wells, some 350,000 of which are believed to be unaccounted for in Pennsylvania alone.
“We cannot and should not accept the fact that leaky oil and gas wells from the 1800s are poisoning our communities,” Lee said on the House floor.
Read Kim Lyons’ full story in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
The PUP is the publication of the striking workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
