Representative Min Announces Agenda to Hold Offshore Oil Polluters Accountable and Protect California’s Coastline

May 29, 2026 Press Release Seal Beach, CA — Representative Dave Min (CA-47) joined local environmental and community leaders at River’s End in Seal Beach to announce his new legislative agenda to hold offshore oil and gas companies accountable, protect taxpayers from cleanup costs, and safeguard California’s coastline from corporate negligence. WATCH HERE Image The legislative agenda includes two bills. The Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act would strengthen oversight of offshore oil and gas operators and require companies to prove they can safely operate and pay for cleanup. The Ending Fossil Fuel Bailouts Act would reform the Bankruptcy Code to prevent fossil fuel companies from using bankruptcy to evade environmental cleanup obligations. Rep. Min previously led on this issue in the California State Senate, where he authored a first-in-the-nation law calling on Congress to modify the Bankruptcy Code for fossil fuel debtors. “Our coastline is central to our way of life in Orange County. It supports our families, small businesses, tourism economy, and the communities that make California’s coast so special,” said Rep. Min. “But President Trump has made clear that he is willing to give the fossil fuel industry a blank check, no matter the cost to our coastal communities, our climate, or taxpayers. For too long, offshore oil companies have been allowed to privatize the profits while sticking the public with the costs when cleanup comes due. That ends now. If a company wants to drill off our coast, it must operate safely, follow the law, and pay to clean up its own mess.” “For years, wealthy oil and gas companies have exploited loopholes to leave their old equipment in the ocean, where it degrades and pollutes our waters,” said Andrew Hartsig, Senior Director at the Ocean Conservancy’s Arctic Program. “Ocean Conservancy supports the Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act' s common sense standards, its enforcement mechanisms to address safety and environmental violations, and its requirement that companies set aside funds to decommission wells, platforms and pipelines at the end of their life span.” “The Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act targets Big Oil’s decades-old scam of abandoning its oil rigs in the ocean, turning its rusty and polluted wreckage into our problem to clean up,” said Rachel Rilee, Political Deputy Director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund . “This legislation finally holds these callous, utterly irresponsible operators accountable by making it clear that they can’t walk away without complete and proper decommissioning. It's high time the oil and gas companies profiting from the plunder of our oceans foot the bill to clean up their own contaminated mess." “The fossil fuel industry currently enjoys free rein to drill and pollute across our shared public lands, harming fragile ecosystems and communities. And as the law stands, they can abuse loopholes to avoid cleaning up after drilling occurs,” said Miranda Badgett, Senior Government Relations Representative at The Wilderness Society . “Thank you Representative Min for introducing a necessary solution that holds fossil fuel companies accountable and keeps costs to taxpayers fair. The Ending Fossil Fuel Bailouts Act is essential to ensuring our public lands are managed for balanced use, conservation, and the benefit of future generations.” The Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act is endorsed by The Center for Biological Diversity, Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, Surfrider Foundation, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, True Transition, Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, and Healthy Gulf. The Ending Fossil Fuel Bailouts Act is endorsed by The Wilderness Society, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Surfrider Foundation, Public Citizen, Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, Ocean Conservation Research, Fish On, Healthy Gulf, and Orange County Coastkeeper. The Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act Would: Establish fitness-to-operate standards for offshore operators. Requires the Department of the Interior to certify offshore oil and gas operators as fit to operate before issuing, extending, or approving the transfer of a lease, easement, or right-of-way on the Outer Continental Shelf. Set minimum qualifications for offshore leaseholders. Requires operators and covered entities to demonstrate compliance with federal, state, and local environmental and safety laws; maintain sufficient financial capacity to meet current and projected decommissioning liabilities; possess an investment-grade credit rating; and avoid bankruptcy filings within the previous 10 years. Require disclosure of decommissioning, safety, and environmental records. Requires operators to disclose current and projected decommissioning liabilities, inspection results, non-producing well status, and worker safety incidents, oil spills, unauthorized pollutant discharges, and infrastructure failures from the preceding 15 years. Require annual compliance reviews. Requires the Department of the Interior to annually assess whether leaseholders remain in compliance with fitness-to-operate standards and authorizes enforcement actions for noncompliance, including lease suspension, civil penalties, supplemental financial assurance requirements, and decommissioning orders. Create decommissioning escrow accounts. Requires oil and gas leaseholders to make payments into interest-bearing escrow accounts administered by the Department of the Interior to fully meet the total cost of decommissioning offshore infrastructure, including platforms, wells, and pipelines. Set payment schedules and cost-estimate requirements. Requires the Department of the Interior, or an independent third party, to calculate and periodically update decommissioning cost estimates and establish mandatory payment schedules, including for new, transferred, extended, and existing leases. Restrict temporary abandonment of wells. Limits temporary abandonment of oil wells to three years, with a one-time extension up to five years only if necessary for operational stability or environmental safety. The Ending Fossil Fuel Bailouts Act Would: Prioritize worker and cleanup-related claims in bankruptcy. Requires wages, salaries, commissions, and benefits owed to non-executive employees to receive priority, followed by accumulated and projected reclamation costs associated with the complete cleanup of fossil fuel operations and retirement of fossil fuel assets. Make environmental reclamation costs non-dischargeable. Prevents fossil fuel companies from discharging environmental bond obligations or accumulated and projected reclamation costs required under applicable federal, state, and local laws. Prohibit abandonment of fossil fuel assets as burdensome property. Bars fossil fuel companies from abandoning estate property as burdensome if the property was or may be used to facilitate the exploration, production, refinement, or distribution of oil, gas, coal, or derivatives of those fuels. Authorize recovery of executive compensation and liability for affiliated financial actors. Allows courts to recover executive officer compensation from the five years preceding bankruptcy when the estate lacks sufficient funds to cover priority worker and cleanup claims, and makes certain parent companies, private equity firms, and hedge funds strictly liable under joint and several liability rules. Extend the fraudulent transfer lookback period. Extends the lookback period for fraudulent transfers and obligations from two years to ten years for fossil fuel company debtors. Restrict transfers of certain fossil fuel leases. Requires covered leases issued after enactment to include a provision prohibiting a leaseholder that has filed for bankruptcy from transferring oil, gas, or coal leases issued under the Mineral Leasing Act or the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Rep. Min was joined at the press conference by Aaron McCall, Federal Advocacy Coordinator for California Environmental Voters; Grant Bixby, Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast; Garry Brown, CEO and President of Orange County Coastkeeper; and Jessica Walden, North Orange County Chapter Executive Committee Member for the Surfrider Foundation. The following members are original cosponsors on both bills: Reps. Jared Huffman (CA-02), Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03), Adelita Grijalva (AZ-07), and Maxine Dexter (OR-03). The full text of the Offshore Leasing Standards and Accountability Act can be found here . The full text of the Ending Fossil Fuel Bailouts Act can be found here .