Environmental Groups, Oil Industry File Separate Legal Challenges to Biden’s Offshore Drilling Plan

Legal petitions have been filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by environmental groups and oil and gas interests challenging the Biden administration’s plan to offer additional Gulf of Mexico drilling leases.

The congressionally mandated five-year plan includes three sales — the least number being offered since 1980, reported Reuters.

“Fossil fuel development is untenable if we want a livable future,” said Brettny Hardy, attorney for Earthjustice, in a press release from Earthjustice. “The oil and gas industry is already sitting on nine million acres of undeveloped leases. They certainly are not entitled to more. Although we acknowledge the government’s focus on climate impacts with the release of this five-year offshore leasing plan, we are taking legal action today because we are concerned about how it will jeopardize the health of overburdened communities.”

The petition filed by Earthjustice on behalf of eight environmental organizations — including Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Friends of the Earth, Oceana and the Surfrider Foundation — said the U.S. Department of the Interior did not “adequately consider the public health impacts on frontline communities” of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, Politico reported.

Meanwhile, trade group the American Petroleum Institute (API) explained its petition as a challenge to the lease sale as an extension of the administration’s policy of limiting access to fossil fuels.

“Demand for affordable, reliable energy is only growing, yet this administration has used every tool at its disposal to restrict access to vast energy resources in federal waters,” said Ryan Meyers, API’s general counsel, in a statement, as reported by Reuters.

The distinct petitions both request that the court of appeals review the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s oil and gas leasing plan.

“We are not surprised by this industry challenge, given its track record of suing every time the Biden Administration makes any attempt to break free from fossil fuels,” said Friends of the Earth Legal Director Hallie Templeton, in the press release. “While the Five-Year Program does offer a record-low number of sales and greater focus on climate change, unfortunately it continues to unlawfully overlook many significant harms of the offshore drilling industry. Our lawsuit is another stand for the Gulf ecosystem, its nearby communities and all wildlife that continue to suffer at the hands of Big Oil.”

Earthjustice said that, although the oil and gas leasing program did consider the effect on the climate of continuing to offer oil and and gas leases, the Department of the Interior did not look at the environmental justice impacts of continuing to develop offshore fossil fuel extraction.

The nonprofit environmental law organization explained that residents of the Gulf Coast are suffering disproportionate health issues as a direct result of the toxic industrial pollution that comes from the federal government offering these leases, and that the burdens will continue with future leasing approvals.

“Central and western Gulf communities are on the frontlines of offshore drilling disasters, extraction-related pollution, and the climate change fossil fuels are driving,” said Athan Manuel, program director of the Lands Protection Program at Sierra Club, in the press release.

Earthjustice added that the government did not properly examine the leases’ impacts on endangered species. In particular, they did not consider how the new leases would continue to jeopardize the Rice’s whale — a critically endangered species that is one of the most threatened marine animals on Earth.

“Gulf waters have never been hotter. Rising seas are swamping the Gulf coast. It’s time to break, not deepen, our dependence on the very fossil fuels that are driving the climate and biodiversity crises,” said Brad Sewell, oceans program director at NRDC. “It’s time to make federal ocean policy part of the climate fix, not the problem. Reducing offshore drilling that exposes oceans, marine life and coastal communities to catastrophic risk and ongoing harm is the answer.”

According to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, drilling in federal waters and on public lands is responsible for nearly one-quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. There are currently 9,000 unused oil and gas leases across eight million acres of federal waters; increased fossil fuel industry expansion will only make the climate crisis worse, said Joanie Steinhaus, Turtle Island Restoration Network’s ocean program director.“

The new 5-year offshore drilling plan was informed by nearly a million public comments against oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters. The industry’s unwarranted lawsuit belies the fact that new offshore drilling is broadly unpopular and is not needed to meet our nation’s energy needs,” said Pete Stauffer, Surfrider Foundation’s ocean protection manager, in the press release. “Moreover, new offshore drilling will increase carbon pollution and undermine U.S. and global efforts to address climate change.”