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.

As part of the scoping process, BOEM's public scoping meetings will be held at the following places and times:

• Mobile, Alabama: Tuesday, September 1, 2015, Hilton Garden Inn Mobile West, 828 West I-65 Service Road South, Mobile, Alabama 36609, one meeting beginning at 4:00 p.m. CDT;
• Gulfport, Mississippi: Wednesday, September 2, 2015, Courtyard by Marriott, Gulfport Beachfront MS Hotel, 1600 East Beach Boulevard, Gulfport, Mississippi 39501, one meeting beginning at 6:00 p.m. CDT; and
• New Orleans, Louisiana: Thursday, September 3, 2015, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123, one meeting beginning at 1:00 p.m. CDT.