The American Petroleum Institute (API), the state of Louisiana, and oil giant Chevron have sued the Biden administration over a decision to withdraw more than 6m acres from a Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale to protect an endangered whale species.
On Wednesday, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced that the Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale 261 will go ahead on September 27, 2023.
According to BOEM, Lease Sale 261 will offer approximately 12,395 blocks on around 67 million acres on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Western, Central, and Eastern Planning Areas in the Gulf of Mexico.
But there were some caveats in that statement though. BOEM stated that it would be expanding the habitat area for a species of whale known as Rice’s Whale as well as adding other restrictions.
Namely, a 10-knot vessel speed restriction for all vessels, regardless of size, and a minimum separation distance of 500 meters from Rice’s whales and any whale he cannot confirm as not being a member of that species.
Also, all vessels 65 feet or greater must have AIS and avoid transit through the Expanded Rice’s Whale Area after dusk and before dawn and during other times of low visibility “to the maximum extent practicable.”
Erik Milito, the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) president, responded to the decision that such measures would “impact the ability of the offshore energy industry to explore, construct, and develop energy projects in the Gulf of Mexico.”
On top of this, the API, the state of Louisiana, and Chevron sued BOEM and the Department of the Interior at the federal court for the Western District of Louisiana claiming that last-minute changes to Lease Sale 261 were “arbitrary and unlawful.”
According to the lawsuit, the previous opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Services implemented certain restrictions for vessels travelling in the “core” habitat of Rice’s whale. That portion of the Gulf was already subject to a congressional moratorium on leasing and the requirements proposed at the time were largely seen by interested parties as “uncontroversial and unobjectionable.”
The new BOEM lease stipulations contained “burdensome operating restrictions across a newly defined and vastly enlarged expanded Rice’s Whale area” that “more than doubled the size of the former area and extended it across the entire stretch of the Gulf,” the lawsuit claimed. The documents also stated that all acreage falling under this expanded area was withdrawn from Lease Sale 261.
The plaintiffs claimed that all of “[t]hese last-minute changes are unlawful several times over.”
“Today we’re taking steps to challenge the Department of the Interior’s unjustified actions to further restrict American energy access in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite Congress’ clear intention in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has announced a ‘lease sale in name only’ that removes approximately 6m acres of the Gulf of Mexico from the sale and adds new and unjustified restrictions on oil and natural gas vessels operating in this area, ignoring all other vessel traffic,” said API SVP and general counsel Ryan Meyers.
Morons. And that is being polite.
Why even bother with attempts at energy independence at this point.