The Biden administration was sued on Thursday for its choice to withhold land from an upcoming sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico in order to protect an endangered whale. The lawsuit was brought by a trade association for the oil and gas industry, the state of Louisiana, and Chevron.
The lawsuit is the most recent conflict between the oil and gas sector and President Joe Biden’s administration about the leasing of public lands and waters for energy development.
As part of his climate change strategy, Biden halted federal drilling auctions soon after taking office in 2021, but the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed a year later, mandates that the government hold the Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for next month.
The Western District of Louisiana Federal Court received the lawsuit after the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday completed preparations for the lease sale. In order to safeguard the endangered Rice’s whale, new construction limitations were incorporated in the final sale notice.
“Today we’re taking steps to challenge the Department of Interior’s unjustified actions to further restrict American energy access in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel of the American Petroleum Institute, in a statement.
An inquiry for comments was not immediately answered by the Interior Department.
The modified lease terms eliminate more than 6 million acres (2.4 million hectares) that were initially planned to be put up for auction and mandate that vessel operators keep a close eye out for the whales and observe speed limits in the whales’ habitat.
API argued that the modifications were unlawful and illegitimate.
The adjustments are the result of a deal reached earlier this month between federal agencies and environmental organizations that filed a lawsuit in 2020 claiming the government failed to provide enough protection for the whales. Now on hold is that legal action.
The U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Western, Central, and Eastern Planning Areas of the Gulf of Mexico will be the subject of Lease Sale 261 on September 27, which will offer over 12,395 blocks on roughly 67 million acres (27 million hectares).
