Arguing that Biden-era fee hikes were punitively high and designed to deter fossil fuel extraction on public lands, the Bureau of Land Management is proposing to roll back its 2024 oil and gas leasing rules. Yet, during the public comment period an estimated 99.5% of all submitted comments were against the proposal.

The very first comment on the docket (with identifying information removed by the agency) seemed to capture the theme: “The American taxpayers should not have to pay for the clean up of the oil industry’s abandoned wells. I fervently disagree with lowering the bond to pre-2024 levels. If anything they should be raised. The oil industry should not be allowed to rape our public lands and then walk away from their mess. Hold them accountable. Stop passing the cost to the taxpayers.”

An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that, of the 15,822 unique comments submitted to regulations.gov, 99.5% opposed the rollback, most commonly on the grounds that weaker bonding requirements would leave taxpayers to cover cleanup costs companies walk away from. Only 43 comments, or about 0.27%, supported it, and 42 comments were “unclear,” according to the conservation group.

About 120,000 additional people submitted a comment via a form letter rather than submitting an individual comment and each form was entered as one comment.

The Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby said the message to the Trump administration “could not be more clear: The public wants to keep guardrails in place that protect taxpayers, public lands, and honest oil and gas operators.”

“Over 99% of commenters told the agency to abandon this rollback, and the Trump administration should listen to the American people,” Hamby said in a statement.

The center analyzed all 15,822 comments submitted and posted to the docket to determine whether each comment supported, opposed, or took an unclear position on the proposal by downloading every comment and attachment posted to the docket.

Under the center’s methodology, any comments that were submitted as a PDF attachment were classified as “unclear.” That included a 25-page letter that was jointly submitted by several industry associations, including the Petroleum Association of Wyoming and the American Petroleum Institute.

The associations say they and their members “are committed to ensuring a strong, viable U.S. oil and natural gas industry capable of meeting the energy needs of our nation in an efficient and environmentally responsible manner.” They expressed support for the proposed rule, saying it “preserves and enhances these far-ranging benefits from oil and natural gas leasing on federal lands” and would “remedy unjustified and ill-advised constraints and uncertainty on leasing and corresponding production that BLM imposed in 2024.”

The rule-making implements provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that was passed by Congress in July 2025 and President Trump’s January 2025 executive order, titled “Unleashing American Energy.” The order directs the removal of impediments imposed on the development and use of the country’s “abundant energy and natural resources.”

The rollback would lower minimum bonding requirements from $150,000 to $10,000 per lease, cut the minimum royalty rate back to 12.5% (down from the 16.67% set by the 2024 rule), shrink the public protest period on lease sales to 10 days and expand noncompetitive leasing, the center says. In addition, the proposed rule would decrease minimum bond amounts back to the levels in place prior to the 2024 Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process rule. That includes cutting statewide (blanket) bonds from $500,000 to $25,000.

“For decades, taxpayers picked up the tab when drillers walked away from wells they couldn’t afford to clean up because bonding requirements were set too low to cover costs. Rolling bond rates back doesn’t modernize the oil and gas program — it just recreates the same mess that Western communities have spent decades trying to clean up,” Hamby said.

There are more than 15,000 documented orphan wells on public lands in the U.S. and the government committed $4.7 billion to the Federal Orphaned Well Program under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Of this appropriation, the Department of the Interior has announced over $2.1 billion in state, federal, and tribal grants, and obligated approximately $1.3 billion to plug and remediate legacy wells and return the habitat to the way it was found.

For comparison, the annual budget for the entire National Park Service is $1.5 billion less than the money pledged to clean up abandoned wells.