SB1150

SB1150 tightens the rules for extending the plugging deadline for older, long-inactive wells and adds testing reports, statewide reporting and enforcement provisions. Its main extension changes take effect September 1, 2027—not September 2025. Under existing law, “inactive” means an unplugged well with no reported production, disposal, injection or other permitted activity for more than 12 months. It is not necessarily an orphaned well with an absent operator. Final law, sections 1 and 5; Prior Natural Resources Code 89.002.

The ordinary extension route will no longer be enough when a well has been inactive more than 15 years and was completed more than 25 years before the extension request. The commission may still grant an extension through specified alternatives: an order based on a demonstrated record of returning wells to operation or financial hardship; an approved plan committing to plugging or production, injection or another operation by September 1, 2042; or an individual performance bond for at least the commission’s full plugging-cost calculation that covers the well’s lifetime despite operator changes. This is not an unconditional 2042 deadline or automatic extension for every well. The separate restriction where commission rules or orders already require plugging remains. Final law, section 89.023(b)–(c); Prior Natural Resources Code 89.023.

A hardship request requires an authorized representative’s signed attestation and a sworn financial statement certified by a certified public accountant. The commission may consider financial, investment, compliance and economic factors. For compliance plans it must consider the listed factors, including well age, inactivity, economic conditions, the operator’s inactive-well share and plans, compliance history, financial assurance, public or environmental hazards and good faith. A denied plan may be taken to a commission hearing. Record-of-recovery and hardship extensions under (c)(1) are not transferable; the act separately requires rules for joint written transfer affirmations of compliance, good faith and continued compliance. The commission sets an administrative penalty amount for violations. Final law, section 89.023(d)–(j).

The commission must report annually by December 1, with its first report due December 1, 2026. Required information includes well counts, ages and inactivity, extensions and financial assurance, plugging by operators versus the state, returns to operation, operator compliance and delinquency, unapproved or unrenewed organization reports and associated financial security, and the annual plugging-cost calculation. This annual report is numbered 89.049 in SB1150’s enrolled text. Final law, sections 2–3.

For each inactive well whose relevant completion report was filed at least 15 years earlier, its operator must submit an annual report documenting a successful fluid-level or hydraulic-pressure test conducted under commission rules. That clock is based on the completion-report filing date, not 15 years of inactivity. Rulemaking must consider public and environmental risk, well integrity and regional hazards such as corrosive or over-pressured formations and hydrogen sulfide. Final law, sections 89.050–89.051.

Signed June 20, 2025, the act generally took effect September 1, 2025, but the amendments to section 89.023 take effect September 1, 2027. Implementing rules must be adopted by December 31, 2026, and those rules must take effect September 1, 2027. These separate dates should not be collapsed into a claim that all new plugging restrictions began in 2025. Official history; Final law, sections 4–5.