Two environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) over the government’s renewals of offshore oil and gas leases for ExxonMobil’s Santa Ynez Unit in the Santa Barbara Channel.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation allege that the regulators failed to conduct “meaningful” environmental reviews and did not determine whether extending the leases was “in the national interest.” The lawsuit seeks to void the most recent lease extensions and prevent BSEE from issuing any future lease extensions “unless and until the BSEE complies with the law.”
The lawsuit notes that the BSEE has authorized extensions of the 16 offshore oil and gas leases in ExxonMobil’s Santa Ynez Unit, which has been shut since the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill. Without the renewals, the leases would have expired and oil and gas operations would have permanently ended, the lawsuit contends.
“Extending the leases for the Santa Ynez Unit,” the complaint states, “prolongs the existence of aging oil and gas infrastructure, increasing the risks of oil spills and other accidents. Extending the leases for the Santa Ynez Unit also prolongs drilling off California and all the harms that come along with it.”
More specially, the lawsuit alleges that the BSEE’s national interest determination failed to consider several highly relevant factors. It contends that the agency “ignored evidence demonstrating that extending ExxonMobil’s leases is antithetical to the national interest in addressing the climate crisis, promoting public health and environmental justice, recovering endangered species, and otherwise protecting the environment given the numerous harms inherent in offshore oil and gas drilling.”
Additionally, the lawsuit contends that the BSEE did not conduct any review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of the environmental impacts of the lease extensions. Instead, the agency deemed the lease extensions excluded from the law.
“In doing so,” the lawsuit contends, “BSEE ignored the numerous harms that prolonging oil and gas activity off California perpetuates, including increased risk of oil spills and other accidents from decades-old infrastructure.”