House Subcommittee Considers Bills to Reverse Course on Offshore Protections

The House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources is taking up legislation today that would prioritize oil and gas production over environmental preservation of U.S. coastal waters. H.R. 513, the “Offshore Lands Authorities Act of 2025,” proposes to reverse presidential protections of coastal waters from offshore drilling made by both Presidents Biden and Obama under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and to change the criteria under which any future protections can be made. 

“Presidents representing both sides of the political spectrum, including President Trump, have used longstanding legal authority to protect our coastal waters from unnecessary, unsafe and potentially catastrophic drilling,” said Dan Moss, senior government relations representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “H.R. 513 attacks this authority, undoing Biden- and Obama-era protections, and seeks to change the rules that allow presidents to withdraw waters from offshore oil leasing. These waters were protected for the benefit of the wildlife and communities that depend on them  and this bill completely undermines that work.” 

Additional legislation being considered in the subcommittee today includes H.R. 2556, the “Comprehensive Offshore Resource Enhancement Act,” or CORE Act of 2025, which calls for the broad use of harmful seismic airgun blasting to assess offshore oil drilling prospects off U.S. coasts, including in protected areas currently closed to drilling. Defenders also opposes this bill.

“Just as you wouldn’t detonate explosives in the Grand Canyon to see what might lie beneath surface, neither should you blast deafening noise into our marine habitats. Doing so causes needless harm to the whales, dolphins, and fish that call these areas home,” Moss stated.

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