US District Court Overturns Federal Agency's Assessment Allowing Expanded Gulf of Mexico Drilling
A federal court has invalidated an environmental assessment that underestimated the harm to endangered marine species from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States District Court for the District of Maryland ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) failed to adequately protect endangered species in its 2020 biological opinion (BiOp), which was a prerequisite for permitting offshore drilling.
The lawsuit, brought by Earthjustice on behalf of environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, argued that the NMFS's assessment underestimated the potential for catastrophic oil spills and failed to impose sufficient safeguards for species like the endangered Rice's whale and various sea turtles. The court found that the NMFS wrongly assumed a major oil spill, such as the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, would not occur again, despite evidence to the contrary.
The 2010 spill, which released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf, had devastating effects on marine life and the environment. The court criticized the NMFS for deferring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on the likelihood of such spills and for assuming Gulf wildlife populations were unaffected by the BP disaster. The ruling emphasized that the Rice's whale, one of the rarest whale species, remains particularly vulnerable, with fewer than 100 individuals left, largely due to the impacts of oil and gas development.
The court ordered the NMFS to produce a new, legally compliant biological opinion by December 2024. Environmental groups hope the new assessment will include stronger protections for the Gulf's endangered species, which continue to face threats from ongoing oil and gas activities, climate change, and other factors.
NOAA Fisheries stated it is reviewing the court's decision, while environmental advocates see the ruling as a critical step toward enforcing stronger safeguards against the ecological damage caused by offshore drilling.