## Facts

- BOEM administered offshore oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico under OCSLA’s staged process: (1) five-year program, (2) lease sales, (3) exploration, and (4) development/production.
- For the 2007–2012 Gulf leasing program, the agency had completed a Final EIS (2007) and a Final Supplemental EIS (2009) assessing environmental effects, including oil-spill risks.
- BOEM conducted Lease Sale 213 for the Central Gulf of Mexico on March 17, 2010.
- On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded during development/production operations, causing a massive oil spill.
- After the blowout began, BOEM continued to accept and approve certain lease bids associated with Lease Sale 213.
- Defenders of Wildlife sought declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing the spill constituted significant new information requiring a supplemental EIS before BOEM could accept or approve post-spill bids and leases.

## Issues

1. Whether NEPA required BOEM to prepare a supplemental EIS before accepting and approving Lease Sale 213 bids after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
2. Whether, under OCSLA’s staged framework, any duty to supplement environmental analysis was properly addressed at later stages (exploration or development/production) rather than at the lease-sale stage.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment to BOEM and denied relief to Defenders of Wildlife.
- The court held BOEM did not violate NEPA by proceeding with post-spill acceptance and approval of lease bids without first preparing a supplemental EIS.
- The court refused to vacate or enjoin the challenged leases.

## Legal Principles

- NEPA requires agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental consequences, but it does not demand perfect forecasting or analysis.
- A supplemental EIS is required only when there are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns that bear on the proposed action or its impacts.
- Under OCSLA’s staged decisionmaking, lease sales confer rights to seek later approvals but do not themselves authorize drilling; environmental review may be appropriately refined at later, more site-specific stages.
- Under the APA’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard, courts defer to an agency’s reasonable technical judgments when the agency considers relevant factors and explains a rational basis for its decision.

## Conclusion

The court upheld BOEM’s decision to proceed with Lease Sale 213 bid acceptances and approvals after Deepwater Horizon without a supplemental EIS, reasoning that existing programmatic NEPA documents and later OCSLA-stage reviews provided a lawful framework for incorporating new spill-related information.


Defenders of Wildlife v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Mgmt., 871 F. Supp. 2d 1312 (S.D. Ala. 2012)