A federal judge canceled oil and gas leases on more than 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico, ruling that the Biden administration did not take climate change into account when it auctioned the leases last year.
The decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a major victory for environmental groups that criticized the Biden administration for holding the sale after promising to move the country away from fossil fuels. It was the largest lease sale in US history.
The Interior Department must conduct a new environmental analysis to account for the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the eventual development and production of the leases. The agency will have to make a decision after that.
"This is huge," said a senior attorney for Earthjustice, one of several environmental groups that brought the lawsuit.
This requires the bureau to go back to the drawing board and consider the climate costs before it offers these leases for sale.
The Interior Department is reviewing the decision, according to a spokeswoman.
Mr. Biden promised to stop issuing new leases for drilling on federal lands. In February 2020, Mr. Biden told voters in New Hampshire. He signed an executive order to stop the issuing of new leases.
A federal judge in Louisiana ruled that the administration must hold lease sales in the Gulf that had already been scheduled.
If the auction was not held, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland would be in contempt of court. Environmental groups argued that the administration could do a new analysis to see how burning oil from the Gulf would contribute to climate change.
According to the lawsuit, the Interior Department relied on an outdated environmental analysis conducted by the Trump administration that concluded that additional drilling in the Gulf would not increase greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental groups said that the analysis didn't consider the impact of offshore drilling on global temperatures.
Scott Lauermann, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas companies, said in a statement: "We are reviewing this disappointing decision and considering our options." Our nation's economy and energy security are strengthened by the development of offshore energy.
Companies argued to the court that vacating the lease sale would compromise the confidential bids that were submitted for the tracts, making their competitors aware of who was bidding on what.
The rights to drill in the area were offered by the government. The leases have not been issued yet.
The 1970 National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, requires the Interior Department to exclude foreign consumption from their greenhouse gas emissions.
The seriousness of the NEPA error and the need for the agency to get it right outweigh any disruptions that revocation of the lease sales might cause.
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