Hi everyone, 

To add to the many rule releases coming out, today the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a final rule that would update requirements for supplemental bonding to protect taxpayers by better ensuring that offshore oil and gas leaseholders can meet their decommissioning obligations. When oil and gas companies fail to properly decommission aging and idle offshore wells, platforms, and other infrastructure, the U.S. public is left to pay the price of their leaks and spills. Supplemental Bonding ensures that lessees are capable of meeting their financial obligations and decommissioning offshore oil and gas facilities in federal waters.

Please use the messaging and social toolkit linked here and pasted below to amplify the rule and call for the importance of holding big oil accountable for its pollution.

TLDR: RT HERE    

Financial Assurances Toolkit


Overview: When oil and gas companies fail to properly decommission offshore wells, platforms, and other infrastructure, the U.S. public is left to pay the price.  Decommissioning offshore oil and gas infrastructure is necessary to protect coastal communities, wildlife, and the environment from oil leaks and spills, and pollution from corroded metal. According to BOEM, the new rule will require the oil and gas industry to provide $6.9 billion in new financial assurances to protect American taxpayers from assuming industry decommissioning costs. 


Today, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a final rule that would update requirements for supplemental bonding to protect taxpayers by better ensuring that offshore oil and gas leaseholders can meet their decommissioning obligations. Supplemental Bonding ensures that lessees are capable of meeting their financial obligations and decommissioning offshore oil and gas facilities in federal waters.  This rule is a step in the right direction to holding the oil and gas industry accountable for their pollution.  


Messaging: 

  • For decades, Big Oil has been using public water as its own personal junkyard – leaving frontline communities, marine life, and taxpayers to pay the price of clean up. 

  • A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that over 75% of end-of-lease and idle infrastructure in the Gulf was overdue as of June 2023, representing over 2,700 wells and 500 platforms. 

    • By not plugging offshore oil and gas wells, dismantling and disposing of platforms, and returning the seafloor to pre-lease conditions, the existing infrastructure – just miles from homes and communities – becomes increasingly vulnerable to damage and deterioration from storms and corrosion. This can topple platforms, cause oil spills, and make decommissioning more expensive and dangerous. Additionally, unplugged offshore oil and gas wells release harmful emissions and pollution that pose real health risks to nearby residents.

  • Public waters are just that – public and belonging to all Americans. But fossil fuel drilling in public waters off our coasts threatens people, businesses, marine life, and our climate. This rule is a step toward shifting the financial responsibility to the companies that profit off of our public resources, but more is needed. 

  • The oil and gas companies, which are making record-breaking profits drilling in our public waters, should be held accountable for their dangerous idle and aging infrastructure, not the American people. Today’s rule requires the oil and gas industry to provide $6.9 billion in new financial assurances to protect American taxpayers from this aging infrastructure.

  • It’s time we hold Big Oil accountable for the harm their dangerous offshore drilling activities impose on our communities, while today’s Financial Assurances Rule is a step in the right direction, more is needed.   


Social Content:


Org Statements

Sierra Club

“For years, oil and gas companies have made massive profits by drilling on public lands and waters,” said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program. “And for years, taxpayers have been on the hook to clean up the messes these companies left behind. These reforms will ensure that oil and gas companies are accountable for their cleanup responsibilities and taxpayers won’t be left holding the bag.” (Full Sierra Club statement)


Center for American Progress

“Today, the Biden administration ends a sweetheart deal for oil and gas companies that are drilling in publicly owned waters off our coasts. The final rule will protect taxpayers from cleanup costs that are the responsibility of polluters. Together with other long-overdue reforms to royalty rates, rental rates, and onshore bonding requirements, this rule will bring the outdated federal oil and gas program into the 21st century,” said Nicole Gentile, senior director for Conservation at the Center for American Progress. (CAP full press statement)


Earthjustice

“This rulemaking is a step in the right direction and will alleviate the financial burden on American taxpayers who foot the bill for cleaning up after the oil industry in our oceans,” said Earthjustice attorney Ava Ibanez Amador. “But more reforms are needed. The oil industry continues to get away with paying far too little upfront, extracting maximum profit, and leaving the rest of us on the hook. The oil industry has shown itself to be an irresponsible tenant in our public waters, and it should be required to pay a much larger security deposit before it can start drilling.” (Earthjustice full press statement)


Oceana 

“Today the Biden administration took a significant step forward in helping ensure offshore drilling companies are financially accountable for their destructive actions,” said Oceana Campaign Director Joseph Gordon. “Oil companies pollute our oceans by abandoning infrastructure, including thousands of pipelines and wells, leaving taxpayers to unfairly pay to remove them. Offshore drilling has caused too much damage to our environment and coastal communities, and this rule helps ensure the oil industry pays to clean up the mess it would otherwise abandon. Taxpayers shouldn’t be left to foot the multi-billion-dollar bill that is required to clean up the trail of destruction left behind. The Biden administration must build on this rule to continue increasing the amount of financial assurance that companies provide.” 


Ocean Defense Initiative

"The ocean should be a source of climate solutions, not climate problems. For too long, the oil and gas industry's failure to clean up aging pipelines, wells, platforms & other infrastructure in the ocean has left American taxpayers exposed to billions of dollars of financial risk. The Biden Administration's rule is a step forward to strengthening risk management and holding the oil and gas industry accountable to their cleanup responsibilities." said Sarah Guy, Executive Director of Ocean Defense Initiative. 


Natural Resources Defense Council 

"For decades, frontline communities, marine life, and taxpayers have been paying the price for the mess that Big Oil leaves behind in our ocean,” said Becca Loomis, Attorney at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “These companies must be held accountable for the environmental and financial impacts of their operations. By strengthening financial requirements, BOEM is taking a step towards preventing taxpayers from bearing the cost of industry neglect. Oil companies, not taxpayers, should be responsible for cleaning up idle and abandoned platforms and wells."




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Lauren Lantry

Senior Director

email:

laurenlantry@team-arc.com

phone:

858-334-5634