Challenging Offshore Oil Drilling In The Gulf Of Mexico

The federal government is illegally doling out deepwater drilling permits to big oil companies without requiring them to submit plans that detail how they would respond to a major spill. Earthjustice is fighting this negligent practice in federal court.

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Case Overview

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster still reeks: throughout the Gulf ecosystem, wildlife is suffering and local economies are limping. The tragedy wiped out beloved wetlands and beaches and might have damaged Gulf fisheries forever.

And yet, for all the complexity that has surfaced in the wake of the spill, the lead up to BP’s epic blow-out was stunningly simple. The multinational oil giant skated through the federal permitting process because the government allowed it to skirt a law that requires oil companies to disclose in their exploratory drilling plans both a well blow-out scenario and a worst case scenario response plan.

This practice has become the norm—oil giants are being given the rights to drill in risky waters without adhering to the letter of the law. Earthjustice filed a lawsuit that asks the Court of Appeals to review the government’s policy of exempting oil companies from complying with the law as well as any recently approved oil exploration plans that fail to include the required blow-out scenarios. Though we’ve garnered victories, including an agreement to require such scenarios for new wells, negligence still reigns in the regulation of offshore oil drilling. Earthjustice continues its fight.

A controlled burn of oil from the Deepwater Horizon / BP oil spill sends towers of fire hundreds of feet into the air over the Gulf of Mexico on June 9, 2010.
A controlled burn of oil from the Deepwater Horizon / BP oil spill sends towers of fire hundreds of feet into the air over the Gulf of Mexico on June 9, 2010. (Petty Officer First Class John Masson / U.S. Coast Guard)

Case Updates

September 29, 2023 Update

A Scaled-Back Offshore Leasing Plan Opens Door to Decades of Oil Extraction

The sales under this program would lock the U.S. into up to 70 additional years of offshore oil and gas extraction, further burdening the health of Gulf communities and imperiling our climate.

An oil drilling facility in the Gulf of Mexico.
September 29, 2023 Press Release

Earthjustice Responds to Biden Administration’s Final Five-Year Offshore Oil-and-Gas Leasing Program

The plan is considerably slimmed down from original proposal but still offers up the Gulf to oil and gas industry

September 29, 2023 document

Fact Sheet: Five-Year Offshore Oil & Gas Leasing Program

Earthjustice analyzed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Act's connection between offshore oil and gas leasing and renewable energy leasing. Even under Earthjustice’s strictest reading of the IRA, Interior does not need to include more than a single oil and gas sale to allow for all planned federal offshore wind leasing.