On August 9, 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report detailing observations of a rapidly changing climate in every region globally. This report does not present sufficient cause to supplement the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement), at this time. See Stand Up for California! v. United States Dep’t of the Interior, 994 F.3d 616, 628 (D.C. Cir. 2021). The report as well as additional analysis of climate change may be a significant consideration in the Department’s decisions regarding oil and gas leasing programs in the future.

This part is what made it into the post title.

BOEM identified Alternative E, defined as the No Action Alternative, as environmentally preferable in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS. The No Action Alternative is considered environmentally preferable because not holding the lease sale would preclude OCS oil- and gas related activities related to new leases from occurring, along with the resulting environmental effects in the Gulf of Mexico. However, significant OCS oil- and gas-related activity would be expected to continue under existing leases and, with only forty-eight percent of leases with approved exploration plans or development plans, the majority of currently leased blocks are still in the early exploration phase. Therefore, a no action alternative will not have immediate environmental benefits. It is also possible that in the short term, assuming OCS oil- and gas-related activities remain confined to acreage currently leased, OCS operators would likely reevaluate their exploration, delineation, and development strategies across their existing portfolio and reallocate resources accordingly. This could also lead to small increases in the intensity of the activities in already leased areas and attendant small increases in impacts in those areas.

To summarize: while the most environmentally friendly thing we could do is not lease this land to oil companies, they’d probably just find a way around it anyway. Drillers gonna drill.

(I like to call this deflection the ‘Once-ler Argument’)

This Lease Sale 257 region-wide lease area encompasses about 91.93 million acres (ac) with 80.8 million ac available for lease. As described in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS, the estimate of oil and gas resources projected to be developed as a result of this region-wide lease sale is between 0.211 and 1.118 billion barrels of oil and 0.547 and 4.424 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

And there it is. The money.

The text is very burocratic and hard to read (without falling asleep). If it states what you say in the headline, it’s bitter! What must happen that the president wakes up? The four apocalyptic riders? :(