The Biden administration on Jan. 31 said it would make $1.15 billion in funding available to create jobs cleaning up orphaned oil and gas wells across the country, according to a release by the Department of the Interior.

“We must act with urgency to address the more than one hundred thousand documented orphaned wells across the country and leave no community behind,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland commented in the release. “This is good for our climate, for the health our communities and for American workers.”

The funding unveiled on Jan. 31 represents a portion of the $4.7 billion allocated in the infrastructure law passed in Congress last year to create a new federal program to address orphan oil and gas wells. The program is considered a pillar of U.S. President Joe Biden’s pledge to address climate change as the investment will help reduce methane leaks, ultimately advancing the goals of the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan.

The number of abandoned wells in the U.S. has grown over the last decade, which, according to a Reuters report, is expected to keep growing as fossil fuels are replaced by cleaner forms of energy.

Earlier in January, the Department of the Interior, which is overseeing the program, reported finding more than 130,000 documented orphaned wells in the United States—far more than a widely-cited report by the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission from 2019, the Reuters report said.

The Department of the Interior said 26 states were eligible to apply for the first phase of funding, or nearly every state that has documented orphaned wells, defined as wells with an owner that is either unknown or insolvent. Each state would be allocated an initial $25 million grant, and additional funding based on its number of documented oil and gas wells, the estimated cost for plugging wells there, and the number of job losses sustained between March 2020 and November 2021.

Texas and Pennsylvania are eligible for the most funding of $107.5 million and $104.2 million, respectively, according to a release by the Interior Department.

Editor’s note: Reuters contributed to this article.

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