A federal appeals court upheld a lower court's decision that the US Minerals Management Service did not need to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement before conducting a 2007 lease sale in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska.
A three-judge panel in The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously said on Aug. 27 that MMS satisfied its duties under the National Environmental Protection Act.
It said that MMS took the requisite "hard look" at new information concerning the impact of rising oil prices on OCS Lease Sale 202 before issuing a finding of no new significance.
The North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission said in their lawsuit that MMS did not adequately consider seismic and other impacts on whales and other wildlife.
"The agency did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in determining no supplemental environmental impact statement was required to address new information about the impact of seismic activity on Inupiat subsistence activities," the appeals court said in a memorandum.
'Adequately analyzed'
"The impact of this new information, and the effectiveness of the existing and new proposed mitigation measures, were adequately analyzed in the 2006 Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment, which was incorporated by reference into the 2006 Environmental Assessment for Lease Sale 202," it continued.
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell welcomed the news. The decision means that Shell Alaska can continue with its plans to explore and develop its Beaufort Sea leases, he said on Aug. 28.
"Outer Continental Shelf development is critical to the state's long-term economic future. The OCS offers the greatest opportunity for new oil discoveries in the Arctic, and barriers against exploration and development there continue to fall," Parnell said.
US Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.) said the ruling was good news not just for the state, but also for US energy security. "That the 9th Circuit rejected all of the claims brought is not surprising," she said. "I've always felt that the MMS met the 'hard look' standard in their environmental assessment of the 2007 lease sale."
Sees other delays
Murkowski added that she remains concerned about continued delays in exploring more of the OCS off Alaska, however.
The Alaska Wilderness League, meanwhile, noted that US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will face several Alaska OCS decisions during September.
It said that a 30-day comment period on Shell's Beaufort Sea exploratory plan will end on Sept. 6, and MMS will decide whether additional environmental reviews are needed "in the same area where thousands of endangered bowhead whales were seen in a 2007 survey by Shell."
The extended public comment period ends on Sept. 21 for a proposed new offshore leasing program for Alaska that MMS is developing, the group continued. And on Sept. 26, it said, Salazar is due to give his first report to the federal appeals court, which vacated the Alaska portion of MMS's current 5-year OCS plan earlier this year.
