DOI appeals District Court Chukchi ruling

In a court case filed Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the U.S. Department of the Interior has appealed a July 21 decision by the U.S. District Court for Alaska, in which the District Court upheld an appeal against the U.S. Minerals Management Service 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale. The District Court has required Interior to revise the environmental impact statement for the lease sale and has meantime banned oil and gas lease related activities in the Chukchi Sea.

In a filing posted Oct. 6 in the 9th Circuit Court, Interior said that “the main issue on appeal is whether the District Court erred in ruling that Interior’s environmental impact statement was deficient for purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act.”

Supplementary EIS

However, Interior is trying to comply with the District Court ruling. On Oct. 5 the agency posted a notice in the Federal Register, stating an intent to prepare a supplemental Chukchi Sea lease sale EIS that would meet the court’s stipulations.

The 9th Circuit appeal is a procedural move to preserve Interior’s right to appeal the District Court case, Interior spokesman John Callahan told Petroleum News Oct. 6. Interior has notified the court that it is preparing a supplementary EIS, as required by the District Court, Callahan said.

In a separate court case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, involving an appeal against the MMS 2007 to 2012 outer continental shelf lease sale program that included the 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale, the court has instructed MMS to rework its environmental analysis for the environmental impact statement for the lease sale program. BOEMRE, the new agency that has replaced MMS, issued a draft revised EIS in April 2010 and since then, in readiness for delivering a completed version of the new EIS to the D.C. court, BOEMRE has been reviewing the more than 100,000 public comments it received on the draft.

Clarification of the legal status of Chukchi Sea oil and gas leases requires resolution of both the District Court and the D.C. court cases.

—Alan Bailey