Oil companies must post money before drilling on federal land.
S. 5630 — Stop Orphaned Wells Act · Filed by Michael Bennet (D-CO) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
Oil and gas companies must post bonds for each drilling site. Companies with poor records, high debt, or past bankruptcies cannot get new leases. The Interior Department must check that companies are financially healthy before approving lease transfers. The bill makes oil companies pay to clean up abandoned wells, not taxpayers.
Who it affects
Taxpayers benefit because oil companies must now pay for cleanup. Oil and gas operators must post more money upfront before drilling. The federal government has about 140,000 to 740,000 abandoned wells. Cleanup costs about 4.7 billion dollars.
One thing to notice
Companies must switch from one nationwide bond to separate bonds for each site. They have one to three years to make this change.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 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
- bond — Money a company puts aside to pay for cleanup if something goes wrong.
- federal land — Land owned by the U.S. government, not by states or private people.
- lease — A deal that lets a company use federal land to drill for oil or gas.
- Interior Department — The federal agency that manages federal land and natural resources.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (29,002 characters) on Oct 9, 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.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
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