Oil companies can buy offshore wind leases at lower prices.
S. 5378 — Outer Continental Shelf Lease Restoration Act of 2026 · Filed by Angus King (I-ME) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Aug 7, 2026 · Referred to committee
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 oil and gas companies buy wind lease areas. They pay the original wind lease price, not a new oil price. No new environmental review happens for these sales. Wind areas no one buys go back to the government. The government can then lease them for oil and gas. The bill stops all new federal oil and gas leases. This freeze lasts until the wind areas are sold or returned.
Who it affects
Oil and gas companies with nearby leases can buy wind areas cheaply. Citizens and the environment are affected because wind energy may not develop. Oil and gas drilling may expand instead.
One thing to notice
The bill uses an old wind lease price to sell to oil companies. A regular auction would bring in more money for the federal government.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Aug 7, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Aug 7, 2026 — 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.
Words to know
- lease — A contract that lets a company use and develop land or water.
- environmental review — A study of how a project affects nature, air, water, and wildlife.
- auction — A sale where multiple buyers bid against each other for the highest price.
- federal — Belonging to the U.S. government, not to a state or city.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,579 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; 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.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-17.
“Oil companies can buy offshore wind leases at lower prices.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s5378/simple Report an error