WASHINGTON (CN) — A coalition of environmental and Gulf of Mexico groups filed suit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday over a Trump-era decision to keep air pollution standards for offshore oil and gas rigs first imposed in 1980 in place.
The plaintiffs center their suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on a 2020 decision by the bureau to reject significant changes that it had previously recommended in 2016, which would have overhauled the decades-old regulations that the groups say are harming the environment.
Healthy Gulf, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana Inc. and the Sierra Club request in their suit that a federal judge vacate the 2020 decision and order the agency to issue new air quality regulations that comply with current environmental standards.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit, Hallie Templeton, legal director at Friends of the Earth, hoped that the legal action could partially limit the damages of climate change.
“As the climate crisis nears its breaking point, now is not the time for routine handouts to Big Oil, especially ‘super emitting’ offshore drilling facilities,” Templeton said in the emailed statement. “The industry’s harms are extensive, from killing endangered species like the Rice’s whale to degrading the air and water quality of Gulf communities.”
The environmental groups highlighted the fact that offshore oil and gas operations contribute a significant source of emissions in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to a 2023 analysis by the bureau, the total methane emissions from such operations were 95,833 tons, equal to the yearly emissions of 579,000 gasoline-powered cars.
However, those results do not reflect reality, the groups argued, pointing to direct aircraft measurements of methane plumes over the Gulf in 2023 which found that emissions were nearly triple the bureau’s estimates, which are based on emissions factors and modeling.
Those emissions were particularly high from “central hub facilities” in shallow waters of the Gulf, which were responsible for at least 50% of the emissions.
The effects of climate change — such as higher global temperatures, rising sea levels and increased frequency of extreme weather, such as hurricanes and flooding — have hit communities in the Gulf of Mexico particularly hard, the groups argued.
They cite several large oil spills caused by hurricanes Ivan and Ike in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Some communities, like the tribal community of Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana have been forced to relocate due to severe land loss, sea level rise and coastal flooding.
The 1980 regulations required that entities seeking federal approval for their rigs must provide data estimating the emission of “volatile organic compounds and total suspended particulates” caused by their project.
The bureau would then determine whether the project would have significant impacts on air quality based on those projected emissions and their distance from the shore, with a certain emission formula: 33.3 emissions in tons per year multiplied by the distance from shore.
For example, a rig 50 miles off the coast would be exempt from emission standards so long as the projected emissions were below 1,655 tons per year. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” emissions standard was set at 250 tons per year.
In 2016, the bureau, under Barack Obama administration, proposed a major overhaul of its regulations to account for technological advances in air pollution control and industry practices, as well as bring the regulations in line with the air quality standard set by the EPA under the Clean Air Act.
The proposal would have changed which criteria and precursor pollutants were covered and changed how oil and gas lessees evaluate and model emissions. It would have also ensured the bureau’s standards are updated with any EPA air quality revisions, changed the circumstances when pollution controls are required and required the consolidation of emissions from multiple facilities.
The proposals were not finalized due to the transition to former President Donald Trump’s administration in January 2017, after which he issued a series of executive orders ordering federal agencies to review actions that could burden domestic energy production and potentially withdraw those actions, including one that directly targeted the 2016 proposals.
On June 5, 2020, the agency officially scrapped the proposals and finalized a rule that left the 1980 regulations in place with only minor administrative updates, according to the plaintiffs.
The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment.