Federal Judge Delays Shutdown of US Oil and Gas Operations in Gulf of Mexico

An oil and gas drilling platform stands offshore near Dauphin Island, Ala., in the Gulf of Mexico, on Oct. 5, 2013. Steve Nesius/Reuters

A federal judge has granted a 5-month extension to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to update a key environmental assessment, averting a potential shutdown of U.S. oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

The order, issued by Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on Oct. 21, means that drilling activities can continue while NMFS revises its 2020 biological opinion, which governs the impact of offshore fossil fuel extraction on endangered species.

Boardman’s earlier Aug. 19 ruling found the 2020 biological opinion to be in violation of both the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The judge allowed the flawed biological opinion to remain operative until Dec. 20, 2024, to give federal agencies time to prepare a new one that offered more protections for endangered species.

The decision won praise from environmental groups but warnings from the fossil fuel industry that the tight deadline to revise the biological opinion threatened to halt or seriously slow all oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

On Sept. 16, NMFS and the oil and gas lobbying group American Petroleum Institute (API) filed a motion to amend the court’s Aug. 19 judgment, asking for more time to prepare a revised biological opinion, citing resource and time constraints.

“While the Court did not order NMFS to complete consultation and issue a new biological opinion by December 20, 2024, it did order that the challenged 2020 biological opinion be vacated on that date,” API and NMFS wrote in their joint motion. “Doing so without the benefit of a new biological opinion in place at that time will result in substantial disruption to ongoing permitted activities across the Gulf of Mexico with potential knock-on effects to domestic energy production and species conservation.”

Boardman sided with the defendants’ request for an extension, with her Oct. 21 decision postponing the effective date of the vacatur of the 2020 biological opinion to May 21, 2025. Her order also requires NMFS to provide the court with status reports on the progress of the revision every 60 days.

The judge’s decision to grant the extension was met with praise from API and criticism from Earthjustice, which challenged the 2020 biological opinion on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration Network.

API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers welcomed what he described as a “pragmatic” decision to allow the NMFS more time to prepare a revised biological opinion.

“Today’s ruling provides only temporary relief and work still must be done to avoid disruptions to the backbone of our nation’s energy supply,” Meyers said in a statement. “We stand ready to work with NMFS and offer our industry’s expertise to complete a new biological opinion that balances environmental protection and the world’s growing need for affordable, reliable energy.”

Earthjustice Senior Attorney Chris Eaton expressed disappointment in the decision.

“We’re disappointed that the Fisheries Service can further delay any action to protect rare Gulf species like the Gulf of Mexico Rice’s whale, which is on a path to extinction,“ Eaton told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. ”The law requires that the government protect threatened and endangered species from offshore drilling in the Gulf.”

Earthjustice’s lawsuit against NMFS challenged the 2020 biological opinion on the premise that it failed to require sufficient safeguards for endangered species, including Rice’s whale, which was identified in the complaint as Bryde’s whale, an alternate name for the species.

Rice’s whale is one of the most endangered marine mammal species on the planet, with an estimated population of 51 individuals, around 100 scientists told the Biden administration in an open letter in 2022.

The scientists said that the loss of even a single whale threatens the survival of the entire species, urging the government to disallow oil and gas drilling in and around the whale’s habitat.