Attorneys general from nine Mid-Atlantic coastal US states are joining environmental and other organizations’ lawsuit against the federal government for issuing incidental harassment authorizations to five geophysical contractors seeking to conduct the first offshore oil and gas seismic tests in the region since the 1980s, Maryland AG Brian E. Frosh (D) announced on Dec. 20.
“Our office is leading a coalition of nine attorneys general in intervening in a lawsuit that was filed last week in South Carolina,” Frosh said during a news conference at Baltimore’s National Aquarium. The groups sued US Commerce Sec. Wilbur L. Ross and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) after NMFS issued the IHAs on Nov. 30 to the offshore geophysical contractors after several years of delays (OGJ Online, Dec. 11, 2018).
AGs from North Carolina, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York also are participating, Frosh said.
“Now, in order to engage in the actual drilling, the companies will need permits from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at the Department of the Interior in addition to the [IHAs],” he said. “BOEM has yet to act, but we expect it to do so, likely in January. We’re acting now because the permits eliminate a major obstacle to testing, and we contend that these authorizations are illegal.”
The AGs also contend that the IHAs violated the 1973 Endangered Species Act, Frosh continued. “There are fewer than 500 right whales that now survive. Blue whales and sperm whales also are endangered,” he said. “We argue as well that NMFS is violating the Administrative Procedures Act because of its bad arithmetic and also because the government has pre-emptively given a waiver to the State of Florida.”
“I can think of no more consequential issue to Maryland’s citizens, economy, and environment than offshore drilling on the Mid-Atlantic coast,” said Mark J. Belton, the state’s Natural Resources Department secretary who also participated in the event. “The Hogan administration has been steadfast against the potential of offshore drilling and seismic testing in the Mid-Atlantic region since as early as the spring of 2017 when it was first contemplated. That has not changed.”
He said that the only reason to do oil and gas seismic surveys along the US Mid-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf is to ultimately drill there. Maryland and four other states formed the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean to discuss and manage issues of importance off their coasts, Belton noted.
“All five states are against this effort, and we have certainly signed on to letters to the federal government on this particular issue,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to get the Mid-Atlantic region removed from the 5-year schedule for offshore drilling, which I understand is going to be considered early in 2019.”
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
