New England gets permanent shield against offshore oil drilling
S. 1472 — New England Coastal Protection Act · Filed by Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) · 10 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 10, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently prohibit the federal government from issuing oil and gas leases in waters off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It removes the Secretary of the Interior's authority to lease federal ocean territory for oil and gas exploration or production in that region, effectively protecting New England's coastal waters from offshore drilling.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a geographic prohibition on federal oil and gas leasing. It is a straightforward environmental and coastal-protection measure with no hidden provisions or cross-purposes.
What the text implies
- Forecloses future federal revenue from oil/gas lease sales in New England waters, reducing Interior Department receipts and potentially affecting federal budget allocations tied to OCSLA revenue-sharing.
- May increase pressure on oil and gas companies to seek leases in other U.S. offshore regions (Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, Pacific) or internationally, shifting rather than eliminating fossil-fuel development.
- Establishes a regional precedent: other coastal states may introduce similar bills, fragmenting the federal leasing program into a patchwork of state-by-state prohibitions.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens in New England gain protection from the environmental, public-health, and economic risks associated with offshore oil and gas development (spills, habitat damage, climate emissions, fishing disruption). The restriction applies only to federal leasing authority, not private property or existing operations, and reflects a democratic choice to preserve coastal resources.
Named in the bill
Secretary of the Interior, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), State of Maine, State of New Hampshire, State of Massachusetts, State of Rhode Island, State of Connecticut
Where it stands
10 cosponsors: 8 Democrats, 1 Independents, 1 Republicans.
- Apr 10, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Apr 10, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $773,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 64 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Sheldon Whitehouse, the sponsor, reported $52,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Ocean Conservancy — $403,000 on 2 filings
- Defenders of Wildlife — $370,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (651 characters) on Aug 29, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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 17, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“New England gets permanent shield against offshore oil drilling” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s1472 Report an error
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