Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Corporate Bankruptcy on Urban Oil and Gas Infrastructure

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。近年来，能源公司的大规模破产导致美国各地数以千计的油井和气井成为孤儿，而且这些破产数量预计还会大幅增加。如果没有溶剂所有者来堵住和停用这些油井，这些油井就会增加本已庞大的废弃油气基础设施网络。城市中的油井和气井特别容易被废弃，使附近的社区暴露在有毒物质、重新开发挑战和过高的清理责任之下。这个博士论文项目调查了公司破产对石油和天然气生产社区的影响。除了为研究生提供科学数据收集和分析方法的培训外，这项研究的发现还被广泛传播给各种受众，包括公共利益出版物、行业期刊、法律公告和环境组织的报告。三个研究问题促使本研究：(1)作为一种法律技术和一种政治话语类型，破产在多大程度上和以何种方式塑造了对城市经济稳定、环境正义、公共健康和安全的主张，企业责任？(2)资不抵债的石油和天然气公司及其孤井如何突显金融资本主义的不可预测性和不确定性？(3)孤井的位置在城市而不是农村地区，以什么方式影响公民对油井废弃和退役的反应？为了回答这些问题，这位博士生利用人种学田野调查，陪同和采访了不同的城市利益相关者，如一线社区团体、环境正义组织、城市官员和行业代表，他们在经历企业破产、石油和天然气开采以及他们所在城市的环境和金融未来时进行了采访。该项目提供了一个模型，用于研究责任、责任、债务和信贷如何影响石油和天然气部门，进而影响到这个废弃基础设施所在地区未来几代人的政治、经济和社会生活的几乎方方面面。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Mass bankruptcies of energy companies have orphaned thousands of oil and gas wells across the United States in recent years, and these bankruptcies are projected to increase dramatically. Without solvent owners to plug and decommission them, such wells add to the already-sprawling network of abandoned oil and gas infrastructure. Oil and gas wells in cities are especially prone to abandonment, exposing nearby communities to toxins, redevelopment challenges, and exorbitant cleanup liabilities. This doctoral dissertation project investigates the impacts of corporate insolvencies on oil and gas-producing communities. In addition to providing training for a graduate student in methods of scientific data collection and analysis, the study’s findings are disseminated broadly to a variety of audiences, including in general interest publications, industry journals, legal bulletins, and the reports of environmental organizations.Three research questions motivate this study: (1) To what extent and in what ways does bankruptcy, as both a legal technology and a genre of political discourse, shape claims for urban economic stability, environmental justice, public health and safety, and corporate accountability? (2) How do insolvent oil and gas corporations and their orphan wells underscore the unpredictability and uncertainty of finance capitalism? (3) In what ways do the locations of orphan wells, in urban as opposed to rural areas, impact the responses of citizens to the abandonment and decommissioning of wells? To answer these questions the doctoral student uses ethnographic fieldwork to accompany and interview diverse urban stakeholders such as frontline community groups, environmental justice organizations, city officials, and industry representatives as they navigate corporate bankruptcies, oil and gas extraction, and the environmental and financial futures of their cities. The project offers a model for examining how accountability, liability, debt, and credit affect the oil and gas sector, and by extension, impacts nearly every aspect of political, economic, and social life of the spaces where this abandoned infrastructure is located for generations to come.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.