Gulf Oil Spill: Preventing Another Disaster
SELC in Court to Protect Coasts, Stop Lax Oversight
New Lease Sale Ignores BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster
The federal government ignored the impact of BP’s 200 million gallon oil spill in its assessment of risks and precautions for the Gulf of Mexico before the first new lease sale since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to a lawsuit filed today in D.C. federal court by conservation groups. Read more in the press release.
Case Summary
SELC is leading legal efforts to end unchecked industry control of offshore drilling and to ensure that nothing like the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is allowed to happen again.
Ending the Era of Lax Federal Oversight
BP’s massive oil spill has brought to light the lax oversight of offshore drilling by federal regulators, who have routinely allowed oil companies to engage in risky deepwater drilling operations with waivers from environmental review and wholly inadequate emergency response plans. The result is the worst manmade environmental disaster in the nation’s history.
Even after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the federal agency in charge of policing offshore drilling, the Minerals Management Service (now known as the Bureau of Oceans Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement) (pdf), continued to approve dozens of similar drilling operations in the Gulf—all with the same inadequate scrutiny of environmental impacts. This dangerous practice must be stopped.
SELC Takes Legal Action
On May 17, 2010, SELC and Defenders of Wildlife filed suit against MMS for its failure to require a thorough examination of spill risks from drilling operations. In addition to holding the agency accountable for its complicity in the disaster, our lawsuit seeks to overturn exemptions from legally required environmental reviews that MMS has issued since the April 20 blowout. Some of the projects approved would be almost twice as deep (over 9,000 feet) as the one that hemorrhaged oil in the Gulf for nearly three months (almost 5,000 feet).
On June 11, we expanded our lawsuit to include MMS’s continued approval of new leases to BP and other companies for the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same lax oversight.
Working in Congress for Reforms and a Clean Energy Future
In tandem with our legal action, SELC is working in Congress to shape and advance legislative measures that will yield fundamental reforms in the oversight of offshore oil and gas exploration and production, including meaningful safety and environmental protections, and strong enforcement. We also continue to press for energy bills that will help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and spur the development of clean and renewable alternatives.
Beyond the Gulf: Learn more about SELC’s defense of new areas targeted for offshore drilling in the South Atlantic and Eastern Gulf.