U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today accused the Obama administration of having a double standard in its regulation of oil and natural gas activity on federal lands.

Murkowski said that even as federal regulators put forward more stringent regulations for well cleanup on National Wildlife Refuge System lands, the federal government continues to long-neglect its obligation to remediate the wells it drilled, and then abandoned, in what is now the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.    

“The federal government may see new regulations as part of the solution, but has conveniently ignored the fact that it actually created much of the problem in Alaska. We still have more than 100 abandoned exploration wells, drilled decades ago by the federal government, in desperate need of being cleaned up and capped. We would never tolerate this type of willful refusal from a private company,” said Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

There are currently 118 legacy wells in need of remediation in Alaska – the oldest among them having been drilled by the federal government in the 1940s.

“It’s a double standard, at best, given how the federal government has resisted cleaning up the legacy wells that dot the NPR-A,” Murkowski said.  

The Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey drilled, and then abandoned, more than 130 exploration wells on Alaska’s North Slope between 1944 and 1982. Only a handful of those wells have been properly remediated.

Murkowski secured $50 million for legacy well cleanup though legislation in 2013. She has also secured funding through the appropriations process specifically for the cleanup of the legacy wells. In 2013, Murkowski called a short-lived proposal by the administration to make Alaska pay for the federal legacy well cleanup “an insult to the people of Alaska.”