Environmental groups have asked the Interior Department to take a firmer stance against offshore drilling companies that fail to clean up after themselves — despite the Trump administration’s push to roll back regulations.
The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups petitioned Interior on Monday to forbid companies that have not cleaned up or plugged offshore platforms and wells from acquiring new leases in federal waters.
“Federal officials need to stop handing out new leases to deadbeat oil companies that skip out on their responsibilities and put marine life at grave risk,” said Rachel Mathews, a senior attorney at the CBD, in a statement. “Oil companies should have to play by the same rules as everyone else. If they make a mess, they need to clean it up.”
The request is unlikely to find traction in Washington, where the Trump administration has recently moved to ease bonding requirements on offshore drilling companies. That came despite a 2024 Government Accountability Office report that found companies have frequently failed to clean up oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico — which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America — once their drilling has finished.
