The Department of the Interior (“DOI”) recently published its semi-annual regulatory agenda, which includes two new planned rulemakings affecting federal offshore leases. 89 Fed. Reg. 9598 (Feb. 9, 2024). The DOI’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) is slated to make further revisions to its decommissioning regulations, following other decommissioning amendments made last year as previously reported on The Energy Law Blog. BSEE’s 2024 decommissioning rule would update 30 C.F.R. 250 subpart Q which governs decommissioning activities on federal offshore oil, gas, and sulphu ..read more

The 2nd Annual Tulane Offshore Wind Conference capped off Louisiana Offshore Wind Week on Friday, January 19th. The conference included panels of offshore wind energy professionals discussing topics including leasing, permitting, financing, and the supply chain for US offshore wind energy. Panelists were confident in Louisiana’s strong ability to participate, both as a supplier of goods and services to US offshore wind energy development and as a situs for offshore wind farm projects, however, a key takeaway repeated throughout the program is the need for certainty in order to successful ..read more

The Environmental Protection Agency recently issued draft guidance updating how agencies are to evaluate environmental justice (EJ) concerns when undertaking regulatory actions, entitled “Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis” (the “Guidance”). This 130-page document outlines analytic expectations and technical approaches that can be used by agency analysts in such an evaluation.  The draft revision updates and expands on EPA’s original guidance issued in 2016. The draft guidance addresses scientific advancements, peer-reviewed Agency guidance, and ..read more

On September 8, 2023, EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a final rule narrowing the scope of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) such that certain wetlands are removed from federal jurisdiction. The final rule revises the agency regulations in light of the U.S. Supreme Court holding in its recent landmark decision, Sackett v. EPA. However, the final rule does not clarify some phrases and terms used in the Sackett decision, leaving room for agency discretion and ambiguity in various permitting scenarios. In line with the Sackett holding, the fi ..read more

GOM Lease Sale:  The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held its long-anticipated offshore wind lease sale for the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) on Tuesday, August 29, 2023.  Three GOM leases were offered for sale, with one located offshore Lake Charles, Louisiana, covering 102,480 acres (OCS-G 37334), and two located offshore Galveston, Texas, covering 102,480 acres (OCS-G 37335) and 96,786 acres (OCS-G 37336). Disappointingly, the sale resulted in a single $5.6 million winning bid for the lease area offshore Louisiana, submitted by th ..read more

On June 27, 2023, the EPA administratively closed its Title VI investigations into whether the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (“LDEQ”) and the Louisiana Department of Health’s (“LDH”) permits and other approvals regarding two facilities resulted in racial discrimination. These investigation closures do not lessen the importance of environmental justice in state and federal permitting, but they do signal that, for now, Louisiana will not be required by the federal government to adopt procedural changes to address cumulative and disparate impacts on environmental justice communit ..read more

On June 8, 2023, the Ocean Policy Committee (composed of members from the Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Science and Technology Policy) published a Request for Information, seeking input on developing an “Ocean Justice Strategy.” This strategy will focus on environmental justice (“EJ”) concerns for communities residing near the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes, and it may impact how federal agencies evaluate actions that occur in those areas. As explained in the Federal Register notice, the Ocean Justice Strategy will: assess how the Federal Government should define ocean justi ..read more

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. EPA, No. 21-454 (May 25, 2023) is a landmark ruling in environmental law interpreting the scope of water bodies covered by the Clean Water Act (CWA) – an issue that has been debated by courts, presidential administrations, and federal agencies for decades. The Court’s ruling holds that, with respect to wetlands, the CWA’s authority over “waters of the United States” extends only to those wetlands that are “as a practical matter indistinguishable from waters of the United States” — which requires a showing that (1) the adjacent body of water is a ..read more

On May 17, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed plaintiffs’ challenges to the Vineyard Wind Project—the United States’s first major offshore wind project. The plaintiffs, nearby residents, challenged the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (“BOEM”) final Environmental Impact Statement and the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (“NMFS”) Biological Opinion related to the offshore wind energy project, arguing that the agencies’ assessments violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The plaintiffs ..read more

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