Court’s invalidation of offshore drilling sale ratchets up the

The Interior Department is under pressure from both the fossil fuel industry and environmentalists over an assessment of an offshore drilling lease sale first greenlighted by the Trump administration.  

A cancellation of the offshore lease in the Gulf of Mexico by a federal judge was a win for the Biden administration, but now the decision rests with the Interior Department on how to proceed.  

The agency faces a tough decision about whether to cancel, change or maintain the sale without the ability to blame the outcome on Trump-era calculations.  

The development is the latest in a saga of court challenges regarding this particular offshore drilling lease sale.  

The lease sale, known as Lease Sale 257, was originally approved at the end of former President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump: ‘RINO’ Graham ‘wrong’ on pardoning Jan. 6 rioters Jan. 6 panel probing Trump’s role in effort to seize voting machines: report Overnight Energy & Environment — Virginia panel votes down Wheeler MORE’s tenure. It was later carried out by the Biden administration after a June ruling against its pause on new oil and gas leasing. 

Last week, Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, invalidated the sale and the leases won during it, stating that the Trump administration’s assessment had failed to account for how the sale would change global fossil fuel demand, potentially worsening climate change.  

In his decision, Contreras gave the Biden administration a great deal of latitude on how to approach the solution to this problem, writing that he would “vacate Lease Sale 257 and allow the agency an opportunity to remedy its … error as it so chooses in the first instance.” 

“The Court does not specify how BOEM must do so, on what timeline, or what ultimate conclusion it must reach, leaving those issues to the sound discretion of the agency,” he said, referring to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.  

Asked about next steps, the Interior Department referred The Hill to a statement issued on the decision in which spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said the department was “reviewing the court’s decision concerning deficiencies.”

Schwartz also emphasized that the department was “compelled to proceed with Lease Sale 257” by the June ruling and said that “deficiencies” in the overall oil and gas program need change. 

“Especially in the face of the climate crisis, we need to take the time to make significant and long overdue programmatic reforms,” she said. 

According to Sara Gosman, an environmental law professor at the University of Arkansas, the ruling leaves the BOEM, which is overseen by the Interior Department, with multiple options.  

In an emailed statement to The Hill, Gosman said that after its revised analysis, the department could choose to either not hold the sale or decide to hold a smaller one if these decisions are backed by a new analysis.  

She also said that the department may be able to “drag its feet and not make a…