(Reuters) - Environmental groups sued the Biden administration on Wednesday to block a sale of oil and gas drilling rights off the coast of Alaska tha.
National and community-based environmental groups filed a legal challenge today to stop the Department of Interior’s lease sale in Cook Inlet, Alaska. Lease Sale 258, scheduled for Dec. 30, would auction off nearly a million acres of federal waters in Southcentral Alaska, opening the door to decades of future oil-and-gas drilling.
Environmental groups are suing the Biden administration over next week’s planned lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, saying the sale, mandated by Congress, is based on a faulty environmental review. The sale is set for Dec. 30. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court. It asks that a judge strike down the environmental review underlying the lease sale and vacate or enjoin any leases issues as part of the sale, among other things. The lawsuit names as defendants the U.S. Interior Department, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and agency officials. An Interior Department spokesperson had no comment.