US judge suspends Alaska Cook Inlet lease, pending additional environmental review

abcnews.go.com:

A federal judge has suspended the lease stemming from a 2022 oil and gas sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet basin after finding problems with the environmental review it was based on

JUNEAU, Alaska — A federal judge has suspended the lease stemming from a 2022 oil and gas sale in Alaska's Cook Inlet basin after finding problems with the environmental review it was based on.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, in a decision Tuesday, found the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed in its analysis of the impact of ship noise on Cook Inlet beluga whales, which are listed as protected under the Endangered Species Act. She also found problematic the agency's lumping together of the beluga whales and other marine mammals when weighing cumulative impacts, noting that the Cook Inlet belugas “have been impacted differently than other marine mammals in Cook Inlet by past actions” and that the agency should have considered cumulative impacts of leasing activities on them separately.

Gleason, who is based in Alaska, declined to vacate the lease sale, as the conservation groups who sued over the sale had requested. Instead, she suspended the lease issued in the sale pending a supplemental environmental review that addresses the issues she identified.

The Interior Department had no comment, said Giovanni Rocco, an agency spokesperson; the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management falls under Interior. An email seeking comment was sent to a spokesperson for Hilcorp Alaska LLC, which submitted the only bid in the 2022 lease sale. Hilcorp is the major natural gas producer in Cook Inlet.

The conservation groups had signaled their intent to sue over the lease sale days before it was held.

Carole Holley, an attorney with Earthjustice