Judge halts government plan to reduce sale of Gulf oil leases to preserve whale populations

The Interior Department must increase the scheduled auction of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases by millions of acres next week, according to a federal judge’s ruling, which the Biden administration is appealing.
A federal judge has rejected a scaled-back plan unveiled last month by the Biden administration as part of an effort to safeguard an endangered whale species, ordering the Interior Department to increase the sale of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases by millions of acres next week.

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it was appealing the decision made by U.S. District Judge James David Cain Jr. on Thursday evening in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The sale on September 27 would have put 73 million acres (30 hectares) of offshore tracts available for drilling leases, as it was initially announced in March. When the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of the Department of the Interior released the sale’s final plans in August, that area was downsized to 67 million acres (27 hectares). Cain’s injunction returns the coverage region to its former state.
In some of the to be leased zones, BOEM’s modification also included new speed restrictions and staff requirements for industry vessels, which Cain’s ruling also barred.

As part of a deal the government made with environmentalists last month in an effort to resolve a whale-protection lawsuit brought in federal court in Maryland, BOEM had accepted the decreased area and new criteria for next week’s sale.

The state of Louisiana, Chevron, Shell Offshore, the American Petroleum Institute, and other parties filed a lawsuit to overturn the acreage reduction and prevent the inclusion of whale protection requirements in the lease sale clauses. They argued that the administration’s actions broke rules of a 2022 law known as the Inflation Reduction Act that offered extensive subsidies for clean energy while also opening up additional Gulf of Mexico drilling opportunities. Additionally, they claimed that the modifications made following the initial lease sale proposal in March broke the law since they were made arbitrarily and without a convincing justification.

The lease sale is being challenged in court by Earthjustice and other well-known environmental organizations. The lease sale, according to the organizations, is against the NEP.

They claim the government did not fully consider the effects of new fossil fuel development on the environment or the health risks to Gulf Coast communities near oil refineries.

Representatives of the energy sector applauded the decision. The National Ocean Industries Association’s Erik Milito stated in an email news release that the court’s injunction was a necessary and welcome response to the Biden administration’s unnecessary decision. “A voluntary agreement with activist groups that ignored the law, disregarded science, and disregarded public input resulted in the removal of millions of highly prospective acres and the imposition of excessive restrictions.”

The order, according to a lawyer for Earthjustice, prohibits “baseline protections” that could help save the Rice’s whale from extinction.

According to the lawyer, Steve Mashuda, “these oil companies are looking at the full glass after one sip and calling it empty.”