US environmental groups this week filed a legal challenge in federal court to the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) lease sale 259 that would offer 73.3m acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing. The sale is scheduled for March 28, 2023.
Earthjustice, Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia on behalf of Healthy Gulf, Bayou City Waterkeeper, Sierra Club and the Friends of the Earth. It was filed against Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) following the final notice of lease sale 259.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law in August 2022, directs BOEM to hold the lease sale. However, said the environmental groups in a statement, “it does not require such a vast area to be auctioned to industry, nor does it exempt the sale from any existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“Lease Sale 259 would offer up all unleased areas in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, which could lock in a massive drilling operation to extract over 1bn barrels of oil and 4.4trn cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years, directly contradicting the administration’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to clean energy.”
The complaint notes that, in approving this lease sale, BOEM did not consider the health hazards it will cause for Gulf communities residing in proximity to oil refineries and other polluting infrastructure connected with offshore drilling or adequately consider climate impacts.
Further, said the groups, the lease sale jeopardises the survival of endangered marine life. Five of the world’s seven species of sea turtles inhabit Gulf waters, and the Gulf is the exclusive home of the endangered Gulf of Mexico (Rice’s) whale, whose numbers may have dwindled to fewer than 50 individuals.
