A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling.
The plan covers emissions from its oil, gas and chemical production.WASHINGTON -- A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling, saying the Biden administration did not adequately take into account the lease sale's effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, violating a bedrock environmental law.
“We are pleased that the court invalidated Interior’s illegal lease sale,” said Brettny Hardy, a senior attorney for Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that challenged the sale. Companies bid on 308 tracts totaling nearly 2,700 square miles . It marked the largest acreage and second-highest bid total since Gulf-wide bidding resumed in 2017.
"Barreling full-steam ahead with blinders on was simply not a reasonable action for BOEM to have taken here,'' he said, referring to Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Federal officials have since changed their emissions modeling methods but said it was too late to use that approach for the November auction.
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