The American Petroleum Institute (API) is appealing a federal court ruling that invalidated the results of last November’s Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil and gas lease sale, calling the decision “misguided.”

GOM lease map

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the District of Columbia (DC) invalidated Lease Sale 257, which was the only federal auction held in 2021 (No. 1:21-cv-02317-RC). Contreras said the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) sales, “acted arbitrarily in excluding foreign consumption from its emissions analysis.”

The auction relied on an outdated analysis that was completed by the Trump administration, Contreras noted.

API’s Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president for Policy,...