C4RE News Release: Supermajority of Albertans want oil and gas companies to cover costs of well cleanup, unpaid municipal taxes and landowner rents

November 20, 2025

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• Energy
• News Release
• Oil and Gas

New Poll: Supermajority of Albertans want oil and gas companies to cover costs of well cleanup, unpaid municipal taxes and landowner rents

New polling from Janet Brown Opinion Research shows overwhelming support for holding oil and gas companies accountable for their cleanup costs and unpaid bills.

Key findings:

• 92% of Albertans say companies should pay to clean up their wells.
• 87% support requiring industry to cover unpaid municipal taxes.
• 84% support requiring industry to cover unpaid landowner rent.

The results land as the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) gather in Edmonton, where new data show over $250 million in unpaid taxes owed by oil and gas companies. Rural leaders say communities are paying the price through service cuts and higher costs.

The polling also comes amid growing backlash to the provincial government’s Mature Asset Strategy (MAS), which will weaken cleanup standards and shift even more liability onto the Alberta taxpayers.

Stories from landowners, like Dale Braun’s, highlight the issue: companies like MAGA Energy continue to operate while failing to pay rent for wells on private land, leaving both landowners and taxpayers to cover the costs.

Pollster Janet Brown notes that support for industry accountability is strong across all regions of Alberta, not just rural areas.

See full news release here.

Background

• Across Alberta, there are more than 300,000 wells, 450,000 kilometres of pipeline, and around 40,000 facilities that have yet to be cleaned up after nearly a century of energy development, with cleanup costs estimated to be between $60 billion and $130 billion.
• At the same time, oil and gas companies are increasingly reneging on their municipal tax bills: the Rural Municipalities of Alberta says rural communities are owed $254 million in unpaid taxes from oil and gas companies, many of them still solvent. This is leading to municipalities cutting services, or raising taxes on everyone else to make up the difference.
• MAGA Energy is one of many companies refusing to pay their annual compensation (or rent) to landowners. Landowners are entitled to seek compensation from the Alberta government when companies renege on payments, which means taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. Since 2010, Alberta taxpayers have covered nearly $150 million in unpaid rent to landowners – $30 million in 2024 alone.