The Interior Department said Monday that the National Environmental Policy Act “is not applicable” to dozens of offshore federal oil and gas lease sales mandated by the megalaw signed by President Donald Trump in July.
Alyse Sharpe, a spokesperson for Interior, told POLITICO’s E&E News that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) requires regulators to use the same lease forms, terms, conditions and stipulations that were used for the last federal offshore lease auction held during Trump’s first term.
She said the megalaw doesn’t give Interior or its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management the discretion to add new requirements or stipulations based on environmental concerns.
“Because BOEM does not have sufficient discretion to affect the outcome of these statutorily directed actions by making any changes based on environmental information, NEPA is inapplicable for OBBBA-mandated sales,” Sharpe wrote in an email.
