http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/06/environmental_groups_file_suit.html
Nola.com
Published: Monday, June 18, 2012, 5:45 PM Updated: Monday, June 18, 2012, 5:45 PM
By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune
Four national environmental groups filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Monday, challenging the Wednesday sale of offshore drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The lawsuit contends that the federal agency has not fully addressed the risks to wildlife and the environment from oil spills in the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.
The suit says BOEM officials violated the federal National Environmental Policy Act by not determining the effects of the Deepwater Horizion spill on wildlife and then using that information to rewrite an environmental impact statement supporting Wednesday’s Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 216/222, and instead relied on incomplete information gathered for an environmental statement before the spill.
The Southern Environmental Law Center filed the suit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of Oceana, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity.
“The government is gambling with the Gulf by encouraging even more offshore drilling in the same exceedingly deep waters that have already proven to be treacherous, rather than investing in safer clean energy that creates jobs without risking lives and livelihoods,” said Jacqueline Savitz, vice president for North America at Oceana. “This move sets us up for another disastrous oil spill, threatening more human lives, livelihoods, industries and marine life, including endangered species, in the greedy rush to expand offshore drilling.”
A spokesman for BOEM said the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.
The four environmental groups filed a similar lawsuit in January 2011, challenging the first lease sale after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That suit failed to halt the December 2011 Western Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 218, which resulted in high bids totaling $338 million on 191 tracts.
Special thanks to Richard Charter