The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit published an opinion today upholding the Department of the Interior’s 2024-2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Programme.
The programme determines the number and location of offshore oil and gas lease sales that Interior will conduct during the ensuing five-year period.
In one of his first actions, President Donald J. Trump signed the Unleashing American Energy executive order. That order sets a policy “to encourage exploration and production on Federal lands and waters, including on the Outer Continental Shelf…”
“The court today upheld Interior’s critically important oil and gas leasing program on the Outer Continental Shelf,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “The program plays a key part in the development of our nation’s abundant energy resources in the service of economic and national security.”
A coalition of environmental groups challenged the program, arguing that Interior failed to account for the effects of offshore oil and gas development on vulnerable communities, violated its own procedures by not modelling the effects of leasing on the endangered Rice’s whale, and inadequately assessed the potential for conflicts between oil and gas drilling and other uses of the sea and seabed.
The court rejected those challenges and held that data and analysis adequately supported Interior’s rationale for the program and that it reasonably deferred consideration of specific potential conflicts to later stages in the offshore leasing process.
On April 18, while the case was pending, Interior announced that it would begin preparing a revised Outer Continental Shelf Programme.
