Nine environmental groups on Tuesday sued the Trump administration in an effort to block seismic testing for oil and natural gas reserves along the US East Coast.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the District of South Carolina, claims the administration violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by authorizing the testing through so-called Incidental Harassment Authorizations.
"This action is unlawful and we're going to stop it," Diane Hoskins, a campaign director at Oceana, one of the environmental groups suing the administration, said in a statement. "The Trump administration's rash decision to harm marine mammals hundreds of thousands of times in the hope of finding oil and gas is shortsighted and dangerous."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries on November 30 issued the final authorizations for five companies to conduct geophysical surveys using airgun arrays in the Atlantic Ocean. The Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is expected to soon conduct an environmental review and determine whether to approve permits for these seismic tests.
These tests, to determine the size of oil and gas reserves in Atlantic waters from Delaware to northern Florida, will be used by companies to determine which potential Atlantic leases to bid on and by the government to determine it is receiving fair market value for a given lease.
The Trump administration tentatively plans to hold two Atlantic lease sales in 2020, one for drilling rights in the South Atlantic and one for rights in the Mid-Atlantic. They would be the first of nine Atlantic sales the administration has included in its draft proposed leasing plan for 2019 through 2024.
The lawsuit names Fisheries; Chris Oliver, Fisheries' assistant administrator; and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversees Fisheries, as defendants.
Jennie Lyons, a spokeswoman for NOAA, declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are: South Carolina Coastal Conservation League; Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife; Natural Resources Defense Council; North Carolina Coastal Federation; Oceana; One Hundred Miles; Sierra Club; and Surfrider Foundation.
