WASHINGTON— A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would require oil and gas companies to set aside money to plug and remove old wells and platforms, helping ensure they repair the damage they’ve done to the oceans.

“This bill would go a long way toward holding the oil industry accountable for turning our oceans into junkyards,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Cleaning up after risky drilling operations should be a no-brainer, but too many companies skip out on this responsibility. This bill also closes loopholes to keep irresponsible operators out of the waters that support whales, sea turtles and coastal communities.”

In addition to requiring drillers to reserve money for decommissioning, the Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act (H.R. 9034), would prohibit the federal government from issuing offshore drilling leases to operators that cannot show they can manage the environmental and financial responsibilities of drilling, including decommissioning obligations. It would also prevent operators that have violated environmental and safety laws in the past from taking on new leases.

More than 2,700 wells and 500 platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were overdue for decommissioning as of June 2023, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office investigation. In the Pacific, nine platforms that should be decommissioned remain in the ocean.

Larger oil companies can avoid decommissioning by selling old oil projects to smaller companies that can’t afford the cost of cleanup. These companies sometimes go bankrupt, leaving “orphaned” infrastructure in the ocean that the government is left to clean up using taxpayer money.

The federal government is currently responsible for approximately $196 million in offshore clean-up costs from just 10 company bankruptcies. It is also exposed to billions of dollars of potential offshore decommissioning liability. The Trump administration is trying to gut requirements for oil and gas companies to provide decommissioning bonds.

Decommissioning preserves jobs for oil and gas workers while protecting wildlife and coastal ecosystems. Decaying wells and pipelines may leak oil, chemicals, methane and heavy metals.

In mid-May, a fire broke out on an offshore gas platform off Southern California that recently began well-plugging operations 10 years after the lease expired. And in April 2025 an unplugged oil well near Garden Island Bay, Louisiana, spilled nearly 172,000 gallons of oily liquid into coastal marshes. The 82-year-old well had been inactive for decades before the blowout.

“If an oil corporation can’t prove it’ll be careful with human life and environmental safety, it shouldn’t be drilling in our public waters. It’s as simple as that,” Sakashita said.