Publications and Public Filings

Illinois' Billion-Dollar Blind Spot

How Flawed Laws And Data Gaps Leave Residents Bearing The Environmental, Health And Financial Costs Of Inactive Oil Wells

This report, developed in collaboration with ClientEarth USA, reveals how laws and regulatory systems in Illinois allow companies to dump cleanup costs onto the state, leaving tens of thousands of wells at high risk of desertion and exposing Illinois to over a billion dollars in potential cleanup liabilities.

Based on extensive public records analysis and Freedom of Information Act responses, this report presents the most comprehensive assessment yet of Illinois's unplugged well crisis, revealing how statutory shortcomings, regulatory flaws, and basic data gaps have set a billion-dollar environmental and fiscal time bomb without adequate oversight or accountability. It also presents a range of immediate steps regulators can take to address this problem and legal reforms that could more fundamentally fix the state’s legal and regulatory system to ensure the oil industry pays to cleanup after its operations.

View the Report (pdf)