Federal officials reaffirmed the results of a past oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, setting the stage for further drilling that environmental groups have fought over worries about whales.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released a modified environmental impact statement for 2022’s Lease Sale 258, which had been ordered by a federal judge who last year found BOEM’s initial analysis violated environmental laws.
The environmental group Cook Inletkeeper, along with a coalition of others, sued Interior over the lease sale. That led Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska to order supplemental environmental reviews last year after ruling that BOEM had not evaluated the cumulative impacts oil and gas activity in the area could have on endangered beluga whales.
Beluga whales numbered around 331 individuals in 2022, the last population estimate from NOAA Fisheries.
