Heat drilling gets faster approval without federal checks.
H.R. 5587 — HEATS Act · Filed by Young Kim (R-CA) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 26, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill lets companies drill for heat energy on land where the U.S. owns less than half the underground rights. Companies no longer need a federal permit if they have a state permit. The bill skips federal review of harm to nature and rare animals. The U.S. still collects money from power sales.
Who it affects
Companies can drill faster and cheaper. People may get cheaper heat power. The public loses the review of harm to nature that normally happens for big power projects.
One thing to notice
The bill removes the public notice period and study of harm. Citizens and local groups normally see these for big power projects.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Sep 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
- Dec 16, 2025 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Hearings Held”
- Mar 5, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Mar 5, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 23 - 15”
- Apr 23, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 231 - 186 (Roll no. 137). (text: CR H3073)”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
9 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 15 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $5,276,600 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 31 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 89% of bills with any report.
Young Kim, who sponsored the bill, received $1,670,812 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Fervo Energy Company — $2,220,000 in 4 reports
- Chevron U.S.A. Inc. — $1,670,000 in 1 report
- Earthjustice Action — $376,600 in 2 reports
- Defenders of Wildlife — $270,000 in 1 report
- Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, Inc. — $260,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- federal — Run by the U.S. government, not by states.
- permit — Official permission to do something.
- rare animals — Animals at risk of dying out completely.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,876 characters) on Jul 11, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,928 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-03.
“Heat drilling gets faster approval without federal checks.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr5587/simple Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.