A bill to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to establish fitness to operate standards and decommissioning escrow accounts for offshore oil and gas operators, and for other purposes.

Key Points

• The bill creates a "fitness to operate" certification that companies must pass before they can get new offshore oil and gas leases. Companies must show a clean 10-year safety record, investment-grade credit ratings, no bankruptcy filings in the past decade, and enough money to cover all cleanup costs.
• Companies must pay into government-managed escrow accounts to cover future cleanup and decommissioning costs. These accounts must be fully funded within five years, and companies must make an upfront payment of at least 25% of estimated decommissioning costs before a lease is even issued.
• The government would check companies every year to make sure they still meet the standards. If a company falls out of compliance, the Secretary can suspend their lease, issue fines, require extra financial guarantees, or order them to start decommissioning immediately.
• Wells left temporarily abandoned would be limited to three years, with a possible one-time extension to five years. This targets the problem of companies leaving old wells idle for long periods without properly plugging and cleaning them up.
• The bill authorizes $30 million per year from 2027 through 2031 for the Department of the Interior to implement the new fitness-to-operate standards and oversight requirements.

Votes

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Related Bills

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