Federal regulators will accept no public comments on a pending environmental study of oil leasing in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, a U.S. Department of the Interior agency announced through a Federal Register notice published Thursday.
There will be no public comment period and no public hearing on a draft supplemental environmental impact statement for a Cook Inlet lease sale that was held in 2022 but found to be legally flawed, said U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which manages oil and gas development in federal offshore areas.
BOEM is following the administration’s updated NEPA regulations and a new department handbook on the law, which went into effect on July 3, said Elizabeth Pearce, a U.S. Department of the Interior senior public affairs specialist.
“This Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement is narrowly focused on addressing the court’s concerns, without a separate public-comment round – streamlining what is typically a protracted, multi-year process down to a few months.” Pearce said by email on Thursday.
Although no public comments will be accepted, the public will be able to read the new environmental impact statement when it is finished, Pearce added. “The completed Supplemental EIS will be posted online so Alaskans and other stakeholders can see exactly how we addressed the court’s limited concerns,” she said. [ed. How nice. God forbid the government would want us to know what it's doing.]
The Cook Inlet environmental study stems from a federal lease sale that was held on Dec. 30, 2022. It drew only one bid. (...)
BOEM’s announcement about the lack of public comment opportunities was blasted by environmental plaintiffs in the case.
“BOEM’s decision to exclude the public from its supplemental environmental statement is unacceptable. Public participation is not a box to check — it is the heart of NEPA,” Loren Barrett, co-executive director the water conservation non-profit Cook Inletkeeper, said in an emailed statement. (...)
“This secrecy around exploiting public waters for fossil fuels is completely unacceptable. It would only take one oil spill to devastate Cook Inlet and its beluga whales, which is why the law requires transparency for these dangerous sales,” Monsell said in a statement.
by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon | Read more:
Image: Yereth Rosen
[ed. This is what I did (among other things) during my career. Never in my 30+ years overseeing oil and gas leasing in Alaska was the public ever excluded from commenting on lease sales or any other major federal action. Presumably this recent edict applies to the State of Alaska, as well. It isn't legal, but it's not surprising either. What happened to state's rights?]
