Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia alleging that the Secretary of the Interior and the directors of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement were violating NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act in their management of offshore oil and gas activity in the Gulf of Mexico. CBD alleged that new information showed that offshore oil and gas decommissioning was not occurring within required timeframes or in accordance with requirements, leaving idle infrastructure that posed environmental and safety risks, including risks of oil spills and risks of methane emissions contributing to climate change and increasing explosion risk. The complaint described the findings of a recent report that revealed that 2,700 wells and nearly 500 platforms were overdue for decommissioning in the Gulf of Mexico as of June 2023; that nearly 600 of the idle wells had not been temporarily plugged to prevent leaks before decommissioning; and that more than 800 idle wells had been unused for more than a decade. CBD contended that substantial changes to decommissioning had occurred since programmatic environmental assessments were prepared in 1987 and 2005, including the defendants permitting 97% of pipeline mileage in the Gulf of Mexico to remain on or beneath the seafloor. They also alleged that there were substantial new circumstances and information available about the risks posed by idle infrastructure and decommissioning in place, including information about methane emissions from unplugged and temporarily plugged wells. CBD asserted that the defendants could not continue to rely on the 1987 and 2005 assessments to approve decommissioning in place, time extensions, and other deviations from decommissioning requirements. CBD asked the court to require the defendants to complete, by a date certain, new NEPA analysis to supplement the programmatic analyses prepared in 1987 and 2005.

Lawsuit seeking to compel the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to conduct new environmental assessment of the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas infrastructure.

Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum

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Lawsuit Sought to Compel New Environmental Review of Offshore Oil and Gas Decommissioning

Filed

United States of America

District of Columbia

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Lawsuit Sought to Compel New Environmental Review of Offshore Oil and Gas Decommissioning

Policy instrument

Risk

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance