**Court Orders Federal Agency to Enhance Protection of Rice’s Whales from Oil and Gas Drilling in Gulf of Mexico**
A recent judicial decision has significantly impacted the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico by requiring the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to reevaluate and improve its biological opinion regarding the environmental impact of oil and gas drilling on endangered species, particularly the Rice’s whale.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, siding with environmental groups, vacated the existing biological opinion for oil and gas drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico. This decision was made due to several critical flaws identified in the current opinion, which allegedly underestimated the risk and harms of oil spills to protected species.
The court’s ruling highlighted several shortcomings in the NMFS’s analysis:
– **Underestimated Risk**: The biological opinion was criticized for underestimating the dangers posed by oil spills to protected species.
– **Insufficient Jeopardy Analysis**: The court found that the jeopardy analysis for the Rice’s whale and the Gulf sturgeon assumed the species’ populations remained as large as they were before the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, despite evidence indicating significant population decline after the spill.
– **Incomplete Mitigation Measures**: The agency was faulted for only addressing two out of the five identified stressors that could jeopardize the Rice’s whale, failing to adequately explain how implemented mitigation measures would effectively protect the species.
Given these findings, the court concluded that the biological opinion is unlawful and must be vacated by December 20, 2024, unless a new, improved biological opinion is completed. NMFS has begun the process of drafting a revised biological opinion, aiming to complete it by the end of the year. However, there is a possibility that it may be delayed until spring 2025.
This legal challenge has significant implications for the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental groups have long argued that the existing protections for endangered marine species are inadequate. The Biden administration