Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) today introduced legislation with Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) and five colleagues to hold oil and gas companies accountable for cleaning up offshore wells, platforms, and pipelines in a timely manner. The Plug Offshore Wells Act would boost oversight of this process by requiring an annual public report on the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas wells, platforms, and pipelines. 

“Big Oil is required by law to decommission and plug unused offshore wells, but their tactics to delay and divert responsibility have left thousands of wells and platforms overdue for clean-up, threatening our waters,”  said Congresswoman Porter. “Delays in cleaning up old wells can make drilling infrastructure more vulnerable to damage and deterioration, which can topple platforms, cause oil spills, and make decommissioning even more expensive and dangerous. My bill would help safeguard our environment—and taxpayer dollars—by boosting oversight and accountability for polluters.”

“When our federal agencies fail to do their job, Congress must hold them accountable. The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE) failure to enforce decommissioning deadlines for our offshore oil rigs, platforms, and pipelines jeopardizes not just the health of our oceans and marine life, but also our coastal economies,” Congressman Kennedy said. “I am proud to co-lead this bill, which will implement Congressional oversight of BSSE’s decommissioning activities, to protect the environment and our economy for generations to come.” 

“Idle or abandoned oil platforms and wells in the Gulf of Mexico pose a serious risk to the ocean, wildlife and coastal communities. Just this past weekend, an oil spill from an ‘inactive’ and deteriorating offshore drilling platform was discovered off the coast of Texas, mere miles from popular beaches and fishing spots. This could have been prevented,” said Rachael DeWitt, Senior Manager of Government Relations at Ocean Conservancy. “The Plug Offshore Wells Act is needed now more than ever to hold oil and gas operators accountable for responsibly decommissioning offshore infrastructure and protecting taxpayers from having to foot the bill. We are grateful for Representatives Porter and Kennedy’s leadership on this issue and urge Congress to pass this commonsense legislation.”

According to the GAO, as of June 2023, more than 2,700 wells and 500 platforms were overdue for decommissioning in the Gulf of Mexico. When infrastructure corrodes, it puts our environment at risk—and all too often, the federal government must step in to clean up the mess. Big Oil’s strategy to delay decommissioning and divert responsibility wastes taxpayer dollars and harms our communities. The Plug Offshore Wells Act would boost Congressional oversight of the oil and gas industry, as well as the Department of Interior, to verify Big Oil is following the law and cleaning up its mess. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Jared Huffman (D-CA), Kevin Mullin (D-CA), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) cosponsor this legislation. The Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Environment America, Environmental Defense Center, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Ocean Conservancy, Ocean Defense Initiative, and Surfrider have endorsed Rep. Porter’s bill. 

“This bill shines a light on the oil companies’ obligation to restore the marine environment after making vast sums of money from drilling in our oceans,” said Linda Krop, Chief Counsel for the Environmental Defense Center (EDC), a public interest law firm with a long history of working on decommissioning issues offshore California. “Leaving oil platforms at sea after they are no longer operating often results in safety hazards and legacy pollution. Tracking and enforcing the companies’ legal obligations to decommission their equipment is a critical step toward finally ending the era of massive spills and environmental harm caused by offshore drilling.”

“We are facing a backlog of inactive petroleum facilities now in urgent need of careful decommissioning and the responsibility for mitigating them logically falls on the companies that profited from extraction of the resource and on those who speculated on it by their investments.  Obviously, ownership of a lease contractually implies full decommissioning, and it is high time that the agencies of jurisdiction cracked down on the scofflaws that continue to ignore the responsibilities they've willingly incurred to the environment and to society,” said Richard Charter, Senior Fellow with The Ocean Foundation.

Congresswoman Porter is a champion for protecting our public lands and waters. As a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, she’s confronted Big Oil executives and industry lobbyists over pollution, price gouging, and corporate greed. This year, her reforms to recover billions of taxpayer dollars by raising royalties, rental rates, and bonds on fossil fuel companies that extract from public lands took effect. Following a major oil leak off the coast of Orange County, she demanded accountability and led an oversight hearing. 

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