D.C. Circuit Upholds Interior’s 2024–2029 Offshore Oil Leasing Plan

DEVELOPING

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Department of the Interior’s five-year National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2024–2029 on Friday, August 29.

In Healthy Gulf v. Department of the Interior (No. 24-1024), the court rejected down a plea from environmental groups to accomplish this.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) still plans to hold three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico in 2025, 2027, and 2029,the DOJ said.

“The court today upheld Interior’s critically important oil and gas leasing program on the Outer Continental Shelf,” said Adam Gustafson, acting assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, as quoted by the Justice Department.“The program plays a key part in the development of our nation’s abundant energy resources in the service of economic and national security,” he added.

A coalition of environmental groups said that the program didn’t consider enough about how it would effect groups that were already in danger, didn’t appropriately predict the risks to the endangered Rice’s whale, and didn’t talk about possible problems with other ocean users. The panel turned down those allegations, saying that the record supported Interior’s reasoning and that site- and sale-specific effects could be dealt with later in the offshore leasing process.

Interior has claimed that the five-year plan, which it calls the shortest in program history, only allows sales in the Gulf of Mexico and is in line with parts of the 2022 climate bill that tie offshore wind leasing to previous oil and gas auctions. In April, the department also started working on the following (11th) program while still working on the present schedule.