Healthy Gulf v. Burgum

The federal district court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) environmental review for Oil and Gas Lease Sale 259 in the Gulf of Mexico, which the Biden administration approved in February 2023, failed to take the hard look required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). As threshold matters, the court concluded that the environmental organizations had associational standing for the suit and that the lease sale was subject to NEPA even though the Inflation Reduction Act mandated that BOEM hold the lease sale. On the merits, the court found that BOEM’s baseline scenario for greenhouse gas emissions did not address information—such as the Inflation Reduction Act—that BOEM admitted could have “major” implications for energy markets. The court also said BOEM failed to satisfactorily explain why it could not address such information. The court rejected, however, the environmental organizations’ contentions that BOEM failed to address the lease sale’s compatibility with U.S. climate goals. The court found that BOEM “reasonably contextualized the magnitude of its emissions estimates,” including by comparing them to emissions targets under the Paris Agreement and the Biden administration’s net-zero by 2050 target. The court also found that BOEM failed to take a hard look at impacts to Rice’s whale but concluded that BOEM adequately considered environmental justice impacts, oil spill risks, and other leasing scenarios, including reduced leasing alternatives. The court said it would order additional briefing on the appropriate remedy for the NEPA violations.

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