BOEM Issues a Notice of Intent to Prepare EIS
As part of its five-year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program: 2012-2017, BOEM informs it intends to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for this Program's last proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas lease sale in the Central Planning Area (CPA) of the Gulf of Mexico. Proposed CPA Lease Sale 247 is tentatively scheduled to be held in 2017. BOEM proposes to offer for oil and gas leasing approximately 46 million acres in the CPA, with the exception of the whole and portions of blocks deferred by the Gulf of Mexico Security Act of 2006 and the blocks that are beyond the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap.
BOEM Issues Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), announces the availability of the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for proposed Central Planning Area (CPA) Lease Sales 241 and 247 and Eastern Planning Area (EPA) Lease Sale 226. The proposed CPA oil and gas lease sales are tentatively scheduled to be held in March 2016 and 2017, respectively, and the proposed EPA Lease Sale 226 is tentatively scheduled to be held in March 2016 under the Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program: 2012-2017.
BOEM Public Meetings on Gulf Central Planning Area
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is preparing a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for proposed Central Planning Area (CPA) lease sales beginning with Lease Sale 235 in the Gulf of Mexico off the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Sale 235 is scheduled to be held in 2015. The study will also cover CPA lease sales 241 and 247, to be held in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The supplemental EIS will update the environmental and socioeconomic analyses completed in July 2012 and in April 2013. The supplemental EIS will consider possible new circumstances and information arising from, among other things, the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil spill and response.
CG Public Meetings, Proposed Regulations
The U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to hold public meetings in Seattle on Sept. 28 and in New Orleans on Sept. 30 to hear comments about a proposed rulemaking for ballast water discharge standards. A total of six public meetings are slated for the Coast Guard to receive comments about a proposed rulemaking published in the Federal Register Aug. 28 (74 FR 44632) that would add ballast water discharge standards to the Coast Guard’s ballast water management regulations in Title 33, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 151, Subparts C and D. The proposed rule would also add approval procedures for ballast water management systems found in Title 46, Code of Federal Regulations, Subchapter Q. The first public meeting is scheduled for Sept. 28, from 9 a.m.
