MMS deepwater lease sales continue lax oversight

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continues to approve new leases after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that give British Petroleum and other companies the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same inadequate oversight that led to the current oil spill, according to a new legal challenge filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups say current policies create an incentive to allow drilling even in the face of evident risks because once a lease is issued by MMS, the U.S. government is obligated to pay the lessee either the fair market value of the lease or the amount spent to obtain the bid plus costs and interest if the government cancels the lease or refuses to allow drilling.

Mike Senatore, vice president for Conservation Law at Defenders of Wildlife, said, “Clueless and inept is really the only way to describe the ongoing situation at MMS. This agency is at the epicenter of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history and yet it’s still going about business as usual. How else do you explain MMS’s approval of the right to drill hundreds of new wells in the Gulf, including 13 for BP, based on the same fundamentally flawed and patently illegal environmental documents used to green-light the Deepwater Horizon operation?”

MMS approved new leases for deepwater tracts as recently as June 10 under the same lax oversight complicit in the current Gulf spill.

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