Two federal courts ruled in separate cases on July 16 that U.S. Department of Interior agencies in Alaska and Wyoming could not issue permits for oil and gas drilling without conducting additional environmental impact assessments.
In both cases, the court found that the authorities had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and gave them six months to reassess the environmental impacts of the drilling.
The Alaska case (Cook Inletkeeper v. U.S. Department of the Interior) concerns a 2022 lease sale in Cook Inlet in the northern Gulf of Alaska that was ordered by Congress as part of a deal to pass the Biden administration’s major climate legislation.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) canceled Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 in May 2021, citing a lack of industry interest, but revived the sale after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which included both the climate provisions and the lease sale requirement. BOEM offered 224 blocks on 388,000 acres in the northern portion of the Cook Inlet planning area, from approximately Kalgin Island in the north to Augustine Island in the south, in water depths of 33-260 feet (OGJ Online, September 23, 2022). The sale, held in December 2022, received a single bid from Hilcorp Alaska of $63,983 for the 2,300-acre lease block 6255 (OGJ Online, January 3, 2023).
Environmental groups filed suit, claiming that BOEM’s environmental review of Lease Sale 258 and the resulting record of judgment violated NEPA. They also objected to Congress’s inclusion of a previously canceled lease sale in the IRA legislation.
The federal district court, in an opinion written by Judge Sharon Gleason, found that BOEM failed to adequately consider alternative lease areas, failed to consider the impact of ship noise on beluga whales in the area and failed to assess the “cumulative environmental impacts” of the sale.
Meanwhile, on the same day, Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia barred the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from issuing new drilling permits on nearly 68,000 acres of federal land in Wyoming until the agency conducts a supplemental environmental review. He gave the BLM 180 days to complete the review.
The case, Wilderness Society v. Haaland, dates back to June 2022, when the BLM’s Wyoming State Office finalized the lease sale. Environmental groups sued, challenging the BLM’s environmental review and the amount of the sale. The sale received 81 bids for 122 parcels, with the winning bids totaling nearly $13 million.
Cooper ruled in March 2024 that the BLM had not fully complied with NEPA in assessing the environmental impacts of drilling, and agreed with environmental groups that oil production could harm local wildlife and groundwater supplies. He did not issue a remedial action at the time, instead calling for another round of briefings before issuing the ruling.
The environmental groups had asked the court to set aside the approved leases while the BLM sought time for another environmental review. Cooper ordered the BLM to “suspend approval of new drilling permits for surface-disturbing activities” to “avoid environmental harm” while the agency reviews its NEPA analysis.
