H.R. 2865 amends section 8 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1337) by adding a new subsection that forbids the Secretary of the Interior from issuing any lease for exploration, development, or production of oil or natural gas in areas of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
The bill matters because it converts an executive-branch leasing choice into a statutory prohibition for a defined region. That has immediate practical effects for the Department of the Interior’s leasing program, industry planning, revenue forecasting, and the legal landscape for future offshore activities in the New England OCS region.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds subsection (q) to OCSLA §8, using "notwithstanding any other provision" language to bar issuance of leases for oil or natural gas in any area of the Outer Continental Shelf off the five named New England states. The prohibition covers leases for exploration, development, and production.
Who It Affects
The provision directly constrains the Department of the Interior and BOEM by removing these waters from the pool of leasable acreage, and it removes potential OCS acreage from oil and gas companies’ portfolios and investment plans. State and local coastal stakeholders, tourism and fishing industries, and municipal planners will face the downstream effects of a permanent statutory exclusion of leasing activity.
Why It Matters
By embedding a regional ban in statute rather than administrative policy, the bill reduces executive discretion over offshore leasing and creates a durable precedent for geographically targeted exclusions. That changes how federal leasing programs forecast revenue and how industry evaluates long‑term offshore opportunities in the Northeast OCS.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill is concise: it inserts a single new subsection into the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that tells the Secretary of the Interior he or she may not issue leases for exploring, developing, or producing oil or natural gas in any area of the Outer Continental Shelf off Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. The drafting uses broad phrasing—"any area of the outer Continental Shelf off the coast of"—and an override clause ("notwithstanding any other provision") to make the ban operate at the statute level.
Operationally, the law prevents the DOI and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from including the named New England offshore areas in lease schedules, sales, or any new lease issuances for oil and gas. The text does not say anything about rescinding or altering leases that were already issued prior to enactment; it only forbids issuance going forward.
The bill also contains no sunset, so the prohibition would remain in place until Congress repeals or amends it.Practically, that means BOEM will need to treat the specified portions of the OCS as off-limits in its programmatic analyses, environmental reviews, and revenue projections. Industry players will remove those blocks from exploration and development planning, and financial models that rely on future lease sales in the New England OCS will require revision.
The bill does not address other potential uses of the OCS—such as carbon sequestration, mineral leasing unrelated to oil and gas, or offshore renewable energy siting—so questions will arise about whether those activities remain available under existing law.Finally, the statute-level prohibition creates interpretive and administrative work: mapping exactly which OCS tracts lie "off the coast" of the named states, reconciling the ban with any preexisting leases or permits, and integrating the exclusion into ongoing regional planning and federal-state coordination on ocean uses.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill inserts a new subsection (q) into 43 U.S.C. §1337 that forbids the Secretary from issuing leases for exploration, development, or production of oil or natural gas in any Outer Continental Shelf area off Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut.
The prohibition is statutory and uses "notwithstanding any other provision" language, creating a direct override of conflicting provisions and agency discretion under OCSLA.
The text applies to "any area of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast" of the five states and contains no distance-based threshold or geographic map; its scope depends on OCS boundary definitions and agency mapping choices.
The bill forbids issuance of new leases going forward but does not expressly rescind, modify, or invalidate leases already issued before enactment.
The statute contains no sunset, funding provision, or implementation instructions—responsibility falls to DOI/BOEM to operationalize the exclusion within existing leasing, NEPA, and programmatic processes.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Provides the Act’s name as the "New England Coastal Protection Act of 2025." This is purely nominative but signals legislative intent and policy framing for stakeholders, useful if courts later consider legislative purpose in statutory interpretation.
Statutory ban on oil and gas leasing in New England OCS
Adds subsection (q) to OCSLA §8. The new text explicitly prevents the Secretary from issuing leases for oil and natural gas in any OCS area off the five named states and uses "notwithstanding any other provision" to subordinate potential conflicting OCSLA authorities or administrative actions. Practically, the language converts what might otherwise be an administrative decision into a clear congressional prohibition that BOEM must enforce when preparing lease schedules and environmental documents.
What the bill leaves unaddressed
The amendment is narrowly targeted at lease issuance for oil and natural gas; it does not address existing leases, other hydrocarbons, carbon storage, offshore wind or other renewable energy activities, nor does it supply mapping guidance, funding, or transition rules. Agencies will need to interpret whether "any area off the coast" includes all OCS blocks that project seaward from state coastlines or whether more precise cartography is required; they must also decide how to treat pending lease applications and permits that predate the statute.
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Explore Environment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Coastal and tourism-dependent communities in New England — the ban reduces the statutory prospect of offshore oil and gas development that can threaten beaches, recreation, and local tourism economies, providing regulatory certainty for planners and investors in coastal amenities.
- Commercial and recreational fisheries and shellfishing businesses — by removing the risk of future oil and gas leasing in adjacent federal waters, the bill reduces a source of ecological and fisheries‑management uncertainty that can affect stock assessments and access.
- Environmental NGOs and coastal conservation advocates — they gain a durable, statutory protection for New England coastal waters that cannot be reversed by an administrative leasing decision without new congressional action.
Who Bears the Cost
- Oil and gas companies and investors — firms lose the option value of future leases in the New England OCS, and transactions or exploration plans predicated on potential access to those blocks are devalued.
- Department of the Interior / BOEM — the agency must revise leasing schedules, programmatic NEPA analyses, and revenue projections, absorbing administrative workload without an appropriation in the bill.
- Federal treasury and state governments — Congress and affected states forgo potential future lease bonuses, rentals, and royalties from those specific OCS areas, reducing a potential revenue stream used for federal and state programs in scenarios where those areas would otherwise be leased.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between locking in permanent coastal protection for New England—removing oil and gas leasing as a future option to protect local environments and economies—and preserving federal flexibility to manage offshore energy resources for national energy, economic, and revenue goals; the statute favors local environmental certainty at the cost of reducing the federal government’s ability to respond to shifting energy needs or new information.
Two implementation puzzles stand out. First, the phrase "any area of the Outer Continental Shelf off the coast of" the listed states is broad but imprecise.
OCS boundaries, continental shelf definitions, and the mapping of tract blocks are technical and contested. BOEM will need to adopt a mapping approach to demarcate which blocks are excluded; that process could itself be litigated by stakeholders who argue for broader or narrower interpretations.
Second, the bill forbids issuance of new oil and gas leases but says nothing about existing leases, other offshore uses, or transition processes. The absence of a clause addressing preexisting rights creates practical ambiguity—operators with already-issued leases will likely argue those rights remain intact, while opponents may press administrative or judicial avenues to limit operations on environmental grounds.
Similarly, the statute does not clarify whether non‑oil-and-gas activities (carbon sequestration, mineral extraction not classified as oil/gas, or aspects of offshore renewable development) fall inside or outside the ban, leaving agencies to resolve potentially contentious exclusions and inter‑program conflicts.
Finally, the bill imposes a permanent, geographically targeted constraint on federal leasing. That resolves local conservation concerns but reduces federal flexibility to incorporate new market or security data into energy planning, and it establishes a statutory model for regional carve‑outs that other coastal regions could seek to replicate—raising broader questions about how Congress balances localized environmental protection against national resource policy.
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