The Interior Department’s acting chief lawyer has once again set a stricter standard for the department’s consideration of whether to permit wind energy projects or other activities on the outer continental shelf.
In a technical-sounding but potentially far-reaching legal maneuver, acting Interior Solicitor Gregory Zerzan withdrew a so-called M-opinion issued during the Biden administration and reinstated one from President Donald Trump’s first term.
“Questions of statutory interpretation are notoriously fraught exercises subject to no small amount of conflicting methods and precedent,” Zerzan acknowledged.
The new three-page solicitor’s opinion issued Thursday interprets a subsection of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The provision authorizes Interior to grant a lease, easement or right of way on the outer continental shelf so long as they include the “prevention of interference with reasonable uses” of the ocean.
