U.S. Federal Judge Orders Increased Protection of Marine Species From Oil Drilling in Gulf of Mexico

At the urging of Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and other green groups, a United States federal judge has thrown out a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) assessment governing how threatened and endangered marine species like whales and sea turtles ought to be protected from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Maryland district court struck down the assessment — known under the Endangered Species Act as a “biological opinion” — which was required to ensure that endangered and threatened species would not be jeopardized by exploration and drilling for fossil fuels in the Gulf, a press release from Sierra Club said.

“The court’s ruling affirms that the government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the widespread, persistent harms that offshore oil and gas development inflicts on wildlife,” said Chris Eaton, Earthjustice’s Oceans Program senior attorney, in the press release. “This decision means the Fisheries Service must comply with the law to put in place meaningful safeguards for the Gulf’s rarest marine species.”

In 2020, NMFS filed the biological opinion and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit challenging it on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Friends of the Earth and Sierra Club. Plaintiffs argued the opinion failed to adequately evaluate the possibility of future Gulf of Mexico oil spills without requiring sufficient protections for imperiled sea turtles, whales and other threatened and endangered marine species from offshore drilling operations.

The court found multiple violations of the law in the biological opinion, including an erroneous assumption that a disastrous soil spill such as the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon would not happen, even though a NMFS analysis found that such a spill was to be expected. It also assumed wildlife populations in the Gulf were not affected by the spill, despite evidence to the contrary.

^{Biologists named this Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle Lucky after he was rescued from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, pictured on May 29, 2010. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries}

The assessment also failed to protect Rice’s whale — among the rarest whales on Earth — from extinction due to oil and gas activity.

Oil industry trade groups EnerGeo Alliance, the National Ocean Industries Association and the American Petroleum Institute, along with oil major Chevron, intervened to defend the opinion, reported Reuters.

Of particular interest in the case was the continued existence of Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico, the press release said. With less than 100 individuals left, Rice’s whale is the only large species of whale that lives in North American waters year-round.

Oil and gas development is the main cause of the whales’ current dire circumstances. Approximately 20 percent of the Rice’s whale population in the Gulf of Mexico was lost due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Oil industry pressure to drill deeper and farther out increases the likelihood of a catastrophic oil spill.

“Now the agency has a chance to get the biological opinion right and properly evaluate the devastating impact offshore drilling and exploration has on the Gulf’s protected endangered and threatened marine species. These species, including the critically endangered Rice’s whale, need protection from the daily costs and catastrophic risks associated with offshore oil drilling,” said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney with Sierra Club, in the press release.

Rice’s whales bask near the ocean’s surface and because of this are especially in danger of ship strikes. Fossil fuel exploration’s underwater blasting with seismic air guns interferes with their sonar, which the whales and other marine species use to find mates, communicate and care for their young.

“Simply put, this biological opinion would have condemned the Gulf of Mexico Rice’s whales to extinction,” said Joeanie Steinhaus, Turtle Island Restoration Network’s ocean director, in the press release. “The recovery of these whales and other species is possible as long as we improve the conditions, and the responsibility lies in our collective actions.”