A federal judge has blocked the Biden administration's efforts to remove more than 6 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico from an upcoming oil and gas lease sale and to impose new restrictions on industry vessels operating in the area.
U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana Judge James Cain Jr. on Thursday ruled the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to adequately justify the last-minute changes to the lease sale and did not follow the proper procedure for implementing the authorizations.
Cain said the bureau's contention that the changes were needed to protect the endangered Rice's whale contradicts earlier, extensive reviews the agency conducted of the potential environmental impacts of the lease sale.
"The challenged provisions inserted into these leases at the eleventh hour, and the acreage withdrawal, are based only on an unexplained change in position by BOEM on a single study a few months after (the environmental review)," Cain wrote. "The process followed here looks more like a weaponization of the Endangered Species Act than the collaborative, reasoned approach prescribed by the applicable laws and regulations."
"Even when an agency's decision is based on political considerations, it is not excused from justifying the position--particularly when the decision is a pivot from a prior policy," Cain added.
The state of Louisiana, the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron USA Inc., and Shell Offshore Inc. had sought an injunction blocking changes to the lease sale after the Biden administration last month announced the new restrictions.
The changes to the sale, originally planned for Sept. 27, were in keeping with the terms of settlement the Department of the Interior had agreed to after environmental groups filed suit seeking additional protections for the endangered Rice's whale, BOEM said.
The new rules reduced the land available from 73.4 million acres to 67 million acres and put new speed and operating restrictions on vessels involved in oil and gas drilling operations in areas of the Gulf.
While President Joe Biden had initially paused federal oil and gas lease sales after taking office, provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that he signed in August 2022 required new sales to move forward.
In his ruling, Cain instructed BOEM to conduct the sale without the new restrictions, by Sept. 30.
The American Petroleum Institute said it was "pleased that the court has hit the brakes on the Biden Administration's ill-conceived effort to restrict American development of reliable, lower-carbon energy in the Gulf of Mexico."
"Today's decision will allow Lease Sale 261 to move forward as directed by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act," the API statement said.
A representative of the Department of Interior said Friday the agency was reviewing the decision. Earthjustice said Friday it was considering appealing the ruling.
"These baseline protections for the Rice's whale are quite literally the least we could be doing to save the species from extinction," Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda said.
"Meanwhile, the government is still enabling the oil industry to bid on 67 million acres of the Gulf. These oil companies are looking at the full glass after one sip and calling it empty."
This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
--Reporting by Steve Cronin, scronin@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com and Jeff Barber, jbarber@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
09-22-23 1310ET
