Bill exempts small oil and gas wells from pollution rules.
H.R. 8990 — Protect Domestic Oil and Gas Small Business Act of 2026 · Filed by August Pfluger (R-TX) · 25 cosponsors · Introduced May 21, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill removes pollution rules from small oil and gas wells. These wells produce 15 barrels of oil per day or less. Wells no longer follow Clean Air Act standards or check for leaks. They do not report emissions. The bill stops the EPA from punishing marginal wells that broke these rules.
Who it affects
People who breathe air near oil and gas wells lose protections. Oil and gas companies that run small wells gain freedom from rules.
One thing to notice
Small wells are exempted from leak detection and emissions monitoring. Many small wells together produce millions of barrels of oil annually. They also produce billions of cubic feet of natural gas each year in the U.S.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
25 cosponsors: 23 Republicans, 2 Democrats.
- May 21, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 21, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $3,030,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 30 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 41% of bills with any report.
August Pfluger, who sponsored the bill, received $1,054,325 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Petroleum Institute — $2,780,000 in 1 report
- Independent Petroleum Association of America — $250,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- marginal wells — Oil and gas wells that produce 15 barrels of oil per day or less.
- Clean Air Act — Federal law that sets rules to keep air clean and protect people.
- emissions — Gases and substances released into the air from machines, wells, and factories.
- EPA — Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency that enforces pollution laws.
- 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.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the full bill text on Jun 3, 2026; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
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