A bill to provide for the disposition of surrendered offshore wind energy lease areas, and for other purposes.

The Outer Continental Shelf Lease Restoration Act of 2026 establishes a framework to reissue offshore wind energy leases on the Outer Continental Shelf that were surrendered, canceled, or terminated on or after January 20, 2025. The bill gives neighboring leaseholders the first opportunity to buy surrendered lease areas, sets strict deadlines to put any remaining areas up for public auction, bars former leaseholders who surrendered the leases from buying them back, and ratifies past environmental studies so leases can be reissued without repeating initial environmental reviews.

* **Adjacent Offshore Leaseholders:** Companies holding wind leases that share a boundary point with or were bought in the same lease sale as a surrendered lease area. * **Original Leaseholders ("Covered Entities"):** Companies (including parent companies, subsidiaries, affiliates, or successors) that voluntarily or through negotiation surrendered, canceled, or terminated an offshore wind lease on or after January 20, 2025. * **Department of the Interior / Secretary of the Interior:** The federal official and agency responsible for reissuing surrendered leases, splitting areas between neighboring owners, and holding public lease auctions within set timelines. * **Offshore Wind Industry:** Other potential developers who may bid on unpurchased offshore wind leases during public auctions.

* **Right of First Refusal:** Neighboring wind leaseholders get the option to buy surrendered lease areas at the original minimum per-acre bid price. If an adjacent leaseholder pays, the Secretary of the Interior **must** issue the lease under the terms of the buyer’s existing adjacent lease without requiring further administrative approvals. * **Dividing Shared Boundaries:** If a surrendered lease borders multiple adjacent leases, the land is split into blocks based on proximity, allowing each adjacent leaseholder to choose whether to buy their portion. * **Public Re-Auction Timelines:** If neighboring leaseholders do not buy a surrendered area, it returns to the federal inventory. The Secretary of the Interior **must** offer the area for public lease within **90 days** using the terms from its most recent pre-surrender offering. * **Environmental Review Streamlining:** The bill ratifies all previous environmental analyses completed when the lease was originally designated. It exempts the transfer or reissuance of the lease from new National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.

* **Purchase Price:** Neighboring leaseholders can buy surrendered lease areas at the minimum per-acre bid price established in the original Final Sale Notice. * **Federal Budget Impact:** The bill summary does not outline specific federal spending amounts or appropriations.

* **Bans on Former Lessees:** Companies that surrendered a lease on or after January 20, 2025 (along with their parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, and successors) are explicitly banned from bidding on, buying, or holding any interest in those lease areas. * **Scope of Environmental Review Exemptions:** Skipping new environmental reviews applies only to the transfer and issuance of the lease itself. Future project-specific steps—such as approvals for Site Assessment Plans or Construction and Operations Plans—are not exempt and still require project-level environmental reviews.

This bill sets up a fast-track system to resell offshore wind energy leases canceled or surrendered after January 20, 2025. It gives neighboring wind developers the first chance to buy these areas at minimum bid prices, requires any unclaimed space to be re-auctioned within 90 days, reuses past environmental reviews to issue the leases quickly, and bans the original surrendering companies from buying back their old leases.