Environmental consulting firm sues federal drilling regulators over ...

An environmental consulting firm has filed suit against federal energy regulators to halt the Obama administration's new five-year plan for auctioning offshore oil and natural gas drilling leases on the outer continental shelf, the first leasing plan approved since the 2010 Gulf oil spill.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by the Center for Sustainable Economy, maintains that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management used a flawed analysis to rush ahead with the leasing program in violation of several federal environmental laws.

John Talberth, the president and senior economist at the non-profit public interest consulting firm, said in a statement that the the untapped reserves "should only be developed when and if it makes compelling economic sense to do so," and accused the Obama administration of "rushing headlong into a program that will put our shores and oceans at risk and do nothing at all for America's energy security."

The five-year leasing program includes 15 scheduled sales in offshore areas in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, as well as portions of the Eastern Gulf, as well as the Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet, offshore of Alaska. Regulators estimate the program has the potential to produce 5.75 to 14.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

A spokesman for the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said Monday that the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit contends that regulators did not consider "economic, cultural, social, subsistence, and environmental values of the renewable and nonrenewable resources" located in areas that would be affected by the proposed drilling, as well as the "potential impacts of oil and gas leasing and development activities."

Last month, more than 20 million acres off the coast of Texas were offered in the first lease sale scheduled as part of the program. It garnered about $133.8 million from 13 companies that submitted high bids for 116 offshore drilling tracts

In March, federal regulators plan to auction another 38 million acres in the Central Gulf, which will include about 7,250 federally-owned drilling tracts in water depths of nine to more than 11,115 feet.

Source: http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2012/12/consulting_firm_sues_federal_d.html

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