Sponsors (26)
Official title: To nullify certain Presidential withdrawals of unleased offshore land, amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to establish limits on the authority of the President to withdraw unleased offshore land, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 16, 2025 by Clay Higgins · Last progress January 16, 2025
The bill increases offshore leasing opportunities, revenue transparency, and congressional oversight while restricting executive conservation tools—trading expanded short-term economic and fiscal benefits against higher local environmental and climate risks and reduced administrative flexibility.
Energy companies, workers, and nearby coastal/rural communities would gain new leasing, exploration, and related business opportunities as previously withdrawn offshore areas are opened, supporting local jobs and economic activity.
Federal and state governments (and taxpayers) would likely receive higher lease-sale revenues and royalties, and states/communities would get official estimates of lost future revenues before withdrawals, improving fiscal transparency and planning.
Decisions to withdraw unleased offshore areas would be informed by up-to-date geophysical, geological, economic, and national security assessments, giving policymakers a clearer evidence base.
Coastal communities, fisheries, and marine ecosystems face higher near-term risks of oil spills, coastal pollution, and harm to local fishing economies if drilling expands into restored areas.
Enabling more offshore fossil-fuel extraction increases long-term greenhouse-gas emissions, worsening climate change risks that affect the public and future economic and environmental stability.
The bill reduces executive flexibility and tools to protect sensitive offshore areas quickly (including removal or limitation of executive withdrawals and restrictions on reissuance), making rapid conservation responses harder.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Voids specified Presidential OCS withdrawals, restores listed unleased offshore areas for leasing, and limits future Presidential withdrawals to acreage/duration caps with required assessments and congressional review.
Restores several previously withdrawn unleased areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to make them available again for federal leasing and mineral/oil and gas development. It also sharply narrows the President’s authority to withdraw unleased OCS lands going forward by imposing acreage and time limits, requiring recent scientific, economic, and revenue-impact assessments, and creating a congressional disapproval process for future withdrawals.