Bureau of Ocean Energy Management January 29, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

Consistent with the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), BOEM is announcing its intent to prepare an EIS to inform the decisions that will be taken during the preparation and implementation of the 2017-2022 Oil and Gas Leasing Program (2017-2022 Program). Section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1344) requires the development of an OCS oil and gas leasing program every five years. The 2017-2022 Program must address the size, timing and location of the lease sales to be held under it. Section 18 also requires a multi-step process of consultation and analysis that must be completed before the Secretary of the Interior may approve a new Program. BOEM initiated the 2017-2022 Program process by issuing a request for information and comments (RFI) in June 2014. The remaining process required by section 18 of the OCS Lands Act includes development of a Draft Proposed Program (DPP), a Proposed Program, a Proposed Final Program (PFP), and Secretarial approval of the 2017-2022 Program. The EIS is developed in concert with the 2017-2022 Program documents. The EIS will analyze the potential direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of possible OCS oil and gas activities that could result from lease sales contemplated under the 2017-2022 Program. The scope of the EIS will be based on the DPP after consideration of public input received during the scoping period for the EIS. The DPP includes potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico (Western, Central, and a small portion of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Planning Areas not subject to Congressional moratorium), Atlantic (Mid and South Atlantic Planning Areas), and Alaska (Cook Inlet, Chukchi, and Beaufort Planning Areas) (for details, see the DPP at https://www.boem.gov/Five-Year-Program/). This notice starts the formal scoping process for the EIS under 40 CFR 1501.7 of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations and solicits input from the public regarding alternatives to the proposed action, impacting factors, environmental resources and issues of concern in the DPP area, and possible mitigating measures that should be evaluated in the EIS. The purpose of scoping is to determine the appropriate content for a focused and balanced programmatic environmental analysis by (a) ensuring significant issues are identified early and properly studied during development of the Programmatic EIS; (b) identifying alternatives, mitigation measures, and analytic tools; and (c) identifying insignificant issues and narrowing the scope of the EIS.