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October 2010

Vol. 15, No. 43 Week of October 24, 2010

DOI still revising OCS lease program

The U.S. Department of the Interior is still preparing its revised 2007-12 outer continental shelf lease sale program, in preparation for submitting the program to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the U.S. Department of Justice has told the court.

In a letter filed with the court on Oct. 15 Justice said that Interior had completed its review of the more than 100,000 public comments received following the publication in April of the preliminary version of the program.

“Interior is now preparing a revised program document for the Secretary’s approval,” DOJ said. “Upon completing the document, Interior will submit it for the court’s review.”

In April 2009 the D.C. court upheld an appeal against the original lease sale program, saying that the U.S. Minerals Management Service had not done an adequate analysis of the potential environmental impacts of oil and gas leasing in the Alaska OCS. The court subsequently directed MMS to rework the environmental analysis for reconsideration, causing the agency (now the Bureau of Ocean Management, Regulation and Enforcement) to revise the lease sale program.

The 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale was part of the 2007-12 lease sale program and the status of leases purchased in that sale remains uncertain until the court case is resolved. Having had to scrap its plans to drill in the Chukchi in 2010, as part of the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Shell is now waiting for resolution of legal issues surrounding its Chukchi leases before setting a new drilling timeframe. ConocoPhillips wants to drill in the Chukchi in 2012.

Other uncertainties facing Shell include a continuing Interior ban on Arctic OCS drilling; an as-yet unresolved appeal against Shell’s air quality permits; and an Alaska District Court order for revisions to the Chukchi lease sale environmental impact statement.

—Alan Bailey






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