WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Bush administration did not properly study the environmental impacts of expanding oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast and canceled a program to find new reserves.
A three-judge panel in Washington found that the Bush-era Interior Department failed to consider the effect on the environment and marine life before it began the process in August 2005 to expand an oil and gas leasing program in the Beaufort, Bering and Chukchi seas.
It wasn’t clear whether the decision applies to other areas of the same expanded offshore drilling program, including tracts in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast.
Attorneys for the conservationists and the energy industry said they think it would cancel the entire program, not just the Arctic region.
The court ordered the Interior Department, now run by former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, to analyze the areas to determine environmental risks and potential damage before moving ahead with the program.
The seas off Alaska at the center of the lawsuit are home to wildlife such as polar bears, whales, seals, walruses and seabirds. The lawsuit was brought by three conservation groups that want to protect the ecosystem and the native village of Point Hope, which lives off the wildlife on the Chukchi coast.
