On March 27, 2025, Sierra Club won a federal district court lawsuit challenging offshore oil and gas Lease Sale 259, comprising more than 70 million acres of Gulf of Mexico waters. Three massive oil and gas lease sales were pushed through Congress at the eleventh hour when it passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022: Lease Sales 259 and 261 in the Gulf of Mexico and Lease Sale 258 in Cook Inlet. Sierra Club swiftly took legal action, challenging the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s flawed supplemental environmental review of the Gulf of Mexico lease sales.
The Court’s favorable ruling affirmed Sierra Club’s arguments in two ways. First, the agency’s analysis of greenhouse gas emission impacts did not consider policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act, which aim to stem oil and gas production and consumption, and thus influence oil markets and demand for fossil fuels.Second, the agency’s analysis of impacts to the critically endangered Rice’s whale was flawed because it failed to consider the latest scientific evidence on the species. Specifically, the National Marine Fisheries Service has concluded that the habitat range of the Rice’s whale is greater than scientists previously thought, encompassing the central and western Gulf of Mexico where most leasing and drilling activities occur; this region includes Lease Sales 259 and 261 acreage. The Rice’s whale, which numbers less than 50 individuals and exists only in Gulf waters, is increasingly threatened by oil and gas drilling activities. Scientists have concluded that offshore drilling is the primary threat to the whale’s long-term survival.
We have also challenged Lease Sale 261 on identical grounds as the Lease Sale 259 litigation. Both lease sales are covered by the same supplemental environmental impact statement. The 261 case is pending before the same judge who decided this case. The 259 ruling follows on another favorable court decision on a challenge to Lease Sale 258 in Cook Inlet brought by Sierra Club’s partners. That decision, issued in July 2024, held that the agency’s analysis of oil and gas development impacts was flawed, particularly as to the cumulative effects on Beluga whales.
Sierra Club was represented in this case by Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program Senior Attorney Devorah Ancel.