3258.
(a) The division shall not make expenditures pursuant to this article that exceed in any one fiscal year:(1) Three million dollars ($3,000,000) commencing on July 1, 2018, for the 2018–19 fiscal year, and continuing for three fiscal years thereafter.
(2) One million dollars ($1,000,000), commencing with the 2022–23 fiscal year.
(b) Moneys expended pursuant to this article shall be used exclusively for plugging and abandoning hazardous or idle-deserted wells and decommissioning hazardous or deserted facilities and shall not be used for nonwell or nonproduction
facility-related activities and payments.
(c) The division shall develop criteria for determining the priority of plugging and abandoning hazardous or idle-deserted wells and decommissioning hazardous or deserted facilities to be remediated pursuant to this article. The Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code) does not apply to the development of criteria by the division pursuant to this subdivision.
(d) (1) (A) On April 1, 2021, the department shall report to the Legislature on the number of hazardous wells, idle-deserted wells, deserted facilities, and hazardous facilities remaining, the estimated costs of abandoning and decommissioning those
wells and facilities, and a timeline for future abandonment and decommissioning of those wells and facilities with a specific schedule of goals. The location of the applicable wells and facilities, including the county in which they are located, shall be identified in the report.
(B) As part of the report required in subparagraph (A), the department shall provide recommendations to the Legislature for improving and optimizing the involvement of local agencies in the process of plugging and abandoning wells and decommissioning facilities. In drafting these recommendations, the department shall consider factors unique to each of the division’s districts, and shall consult with local agencies in developing recommendations.
(C) In collecting the information for the report
required in subparagraph (A), the division shall conduct field inspections of hazardous wells, idle-deserted wells, deserted facilities, and hazardous facilities and include information in the report from the field inspections that can be used to prioritize those wells and facilities in the specific schedule of goals.
(2) On October 1, 2023, the department shall provide to the Legislature an update on the report required in paragraph (1) that describes the total costs, average costs per well and facility, the number of wells plugged and abandoned, the number of facilities decommissioned, the total number of projects completed, and any additional wells and facilities identified by the department requiring abandonment or decommissioning. The update shall include the location, including the county, of applicable wells, facilities, and projects
identified in the report.
(3) The report and update required pursuant to this subdivision shall identify wells that are registered to an operator that has reported no active, injection, or production operations for that well in the prior five years and that did not either pay the required annual fee for each idle well or have a valid idle well management plan on file with the supervisor pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 3206.
(4) The report and update to the report required to be submitted under this subdivision shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.
(5) The requirement for submitting a report or update to the report required pursuant to this subdivision is inoperative on
October 1, 2027, pursuant to Section 10231.5 of the Government Code.
(e) The division shall undertake all reasonable steps to recover plugging and abandonment costs for oil and gas wells, the costs for decommissioning attendant facilities, and other costs to
remediate sites from the current registered owner of any well identified pursuant to this subdivision, subdivision (d), including seeking enforcement in other state jurisdictions.