Native Village of Point Hope v. Jewell, No. 12-35287 (9th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs challenged BOEM's Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) analyzing the environmental effects of proposed oil and gas development in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska. The court concluded that BOEM has reasonably concluded that the missing information from the FEIS and Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) was not "essential" to informed decisionmaking at the lease sale stage. The court concluded, however, that BOEM acted arbitrarily and capriciously by estimating that one billion barrels of oil would be economically recoverable where BOEM did not provide an adequate explanation of its selection. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Environmental Law. The panel reversed the district court’s summary judgment entered in favor of federal defendants in an action challenging the government’s environmental impact statements analyzing the environmental effects of proposed leases for oil and gas development in the Chukchi Sea of the northwest coast of Alaska. The panel held that the Final Environmental Impact Statement and Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the federal defendants properly took account of incomplete or unavailable information. The panel held, however, that the reliance in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on a one million barrel estimate of total economically recoverable oil was arbitrary and capricious. The panel remanded for further proceedings. Judge Rawlinson concurred in part and dissented in part. Judge Rawlinson agreed with most of the majority opinion, but she did not agree that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement acted arbitrarily in selecting one billion barrels of oil as the benchmark for analyzing the environmental affects of the proposed leases.
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