## Facts

- The Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, adopted the 2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA).
- The program set a five-year schedule and geographic scope for proposed offshore oil-and-gas lease sales in multiple OCS regions.
- Interior supported the program with a final programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) and an economic analysis comparing environmental and social costs of additional OCS leasing to substitute energy scenarios if leasing were reduced.
- The analysis distinguished pollution impacts in densely populated areas versus remote areas and treated certain values (including uncertain environmental and informational values associated with delay) in qualitative terms rather than full monetization.
- The Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE), a nonprofit organization, petitioned for judicial review, alleging that the program and supporting analyses violated OCSLA and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

## Issues

1. Whether CSE had associational standing to challenge the five-year leasing program.
2. Whether CSE’s NEPA challenges to the programmatic PEIS were ripe at the program stage.
3. Whether Interior’s adoption of the program violated OCSLA § 18(a) because the agency’s cost-benefit approach undervalued environmental harms, omitted certain costs/benefits, or failed to ensure equitable distribution of benefits and burdens.
4. Whether particular objections were forfeited because they were not raised during the administrative notice-and-comment process.

## Decision

- The court denied the petition for review and left the five-year program in place.
- The court held CSE had associational standing because members alleged concrete aesthetic and recreational injuries and the program increased the likelihood of environmental harm.
- The court held CSE’s NEPA challenges were unripe because later, more site-specific NEPA review would occur at subsequent leasing and development stages.
- The court held CSE forfeited two challenges by failing to present them during the administrative process.
- On the merits of the preserved OCSLA claims, the court held Interior’s modeling choices and balancing analysis were within the agency’s discretion and not arbitrary or capricious.

## Legal Principles

- OCSLA § 18(a) requires the Secretary to consider and balance economic, social, and environmental factors in setting a five-year OCS leasing program, but does not mandate a specific model, weighting, or outcome.
- Under APA arbitrary-and-capricious review, courts defer to an agency’s reasonable methodological choices in economic and environmental analysis when the agency explains its approach and acknowledges limits.
- NEPA claims challenging a programmatic EIS may be unripe when later, site-specific decisions and environmental review will define concrete impacts.
- Associational standing can be shown at a programmatic stage when members plausibly face reasonably probable environmental injury from increased likelihood of regulated activity.
- Issues not raised during the administrative comment process may be forfeited on judicial review.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit upheld Interior’s 2012–2017 offshore leasing program, ruling that CSE had standing but that NEPA challenges were premature, certain arguments were forfeited, and Interior’s OCSLA § 18(a) balancing and analytic methodology survived deferential APA review.


Ctr. for Sustainable Econ. v. Jewell, 779 F.3d 588 (D.C. Cir. 2015)