Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE)

API is challenging the Dept. of the Interior’s 5 year oil and gas leasing plan, which includes the fewest lease sales in program history. That challenge was filed on 12 February, 60 days after Secretary Haaland approved the 5 plan and the first day appeals could be filed pursuant to 43 U.S. Code § 1349.

18 weeks after the API suit was filed, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine. That doctrine (described above) instructed judges to defer to agency interpretations when the language in a law was unclear.

Interior’s 5 year OCS oil and gas leasing plan provides for the fewest (3) lease sales in history and may not have included a single sale were it not for legislation prohibiting the issuance of offshore wind leases unless an offshore oil and gas lease sale was held during the prior year.

This unprecedented oil and leasing decision was based on “the need to confront the climate crisis through reducing greenhouse gas emissions” and on achieving “net zero pathways.” Neither of those objectives is articulated in the OCS Lands Act or other governing legislation.

Extending the Secretary’s general safety and environmental authority for OCS operations to include global climate considerations is a stretch and the type of interpretive administrative decision that the Supreme Court struck down.