"Lawsuit: New Offshore Drilling Leases Unsafe for Gulf, Climate", 18 Jul 2018

Three environmental groups are suing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over new oil and gas leases in his 5-year plan to lease an unprecedented swath of seabed—78 million acres—in the Gulf of Mexico.  Two lease sales have drawn the opposition of the Gulf Restoration Network, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.  They contend that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) failed to adequately assess the potential environmental impact of the leases...The plaintiffs...are seeking to block the lease sales...This practice will allow buyers to pick from the entire lot, or whatever wasn’t sold in previous sales, during a semi-annual auction...The lawsuit described at length the health and safety risks—and the significant climate change impacts—that will come with so much more oil drilling...[T]he lawsuit does provide the climate change context...But the Sierra Club and others ultimately decided to focus on other aspects of the environmental report instead...The federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico already has about 2,000 oil and gas platforms, covered under 2,600 active oil and gas leases, according to the latest lawsuit...