<\/p>\n
The National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency responsible for protecting the nation\u2019s ocean resources and their habitat, \u201cirrationally excluded an extremely large spill from its analysis,\u201d deferring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe probability of such a spill was too low to consider it an effect of the action,\u201d according to the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The assessment was \u201carbitrary,\u201d the groups alleged, asking the court to strike it and order the agency, also known as NOAA Fisheries, to produce a new one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Ewald, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, said the agency doesn\u2019t comment on litigation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Endangered Species Act requires the government to certify that any actions it approves won\u2019t endanger a listed species. The law\u2019s list of Gulf species harmed by offshore drilling includes Bryde\u2019s and sperm whales, Kemp\u2019s ridley and loggerhead sea turtles, and elkhorn corals, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The evaluation, which NOAA Fisheries issued in March, covers \u201call activities associated with the Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas program in the Gulf of Mexico\u201d and \u201cis projected to cover 50 years\u201d of Gulf drilling, it says. Before the latest assessment, the most recently completed biological opinion was in 2007, three years before BP Plc\u2019s Deepwater Horizon oil-rig explosion and spill killed or seriously harmed thousands of protected species.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe probability of an extremely large spill is even higher than a decade ago when the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred and the agencies reinitiated consultation,\u201d according to the complaint. \u201cGulf drilling is moving into deeper waters,\u201d magnifying the risk of a well blowout and an \u201cextremely large oil spill,\u201d the plaintiffs said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Climate change has increased the frequency of \u201churricanes capable of causing severe damage to oil and gas facilities,\u201d which can trigger catastrophic spills, they said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit, which also accuses NOAA Fisheries of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups ask the court to strike the March assessment for what they say is the agency\u2019s failure to use the best available science. They also asked the court to make the agency issue within six months a new opinion that accurately accounts for the harms and that requires the Department of the Interior to actively protect against them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental law organization, filed the complaint on behalf of groups including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network. It names as defendants NOAA Fisheries and Chris Oliver in his capacity as its assistant administrator, responsible for implementing its measures.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The case is Sierra Club v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 20-cv-3060, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland (Greenbelt).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2020 Bloomberg L.P.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency responsible for protecting the nation\u2019s ocean resources and their habitat, \u201cirrationally excluded an extremely large spill from its analysis,\u201d deferring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe probability of such a spill was too low to consider it an effect of the action,\u201d according …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3284,12564,6781,1435,1516,12418,9403,1131,8077,3164,11272],"class_list":["post-19880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-act","tag-admin","tag-analysis","tag-claims","tag-drilling","tag-endangered","tag-lawsuit","tag-offshore","tag-species","tag-trump","tag-violated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/19881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}