The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today announced that it is seeking comments by Thursday, Oct. 6 on its 2023-2028 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Proposed Program and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (see here and here).
The Proposed Program’s lease sale schedule includes 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and 1 potential lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, with the Draft EIS further analyzing approaches that would include a 15-mile no leasing buffer offshore Baldwin County, AL and a targeted leasing approach in the Gulf of Mexico. BOEM noted that the size, timing, location, and number of potential lease sales will be “robustly analyzed” and “may be further narrowed or excluded,” with DOI stating that the Final Program may include fewer potential lease sales or no lease sales at all.
Interior Sec. Deb Haaland reiterated the Biden administration’s “commitment to transition to a clean energy economy” and called the comment period “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore and gas leasing,” saying that “[t]he time for the public to weigh in on our future is now.”
In conjunction with the comment period, BOEM will hold public virtual meetings on Tuesday, Aug. 23, Thursday, Aug. 25, Monday, Aug. 29, and Wednesday, Aug. 31.
