A U.S. district court on Thursday vacated the results from last November’s oil and natural gas auction in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), citing an outdated emissions analysis by the Trump administration.

GOM lease map

In the ruling, considered a major victory for environmental groups, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of the District of Columbia invalidated Lease Sale 257, which was the first federal auction in a year (No. 1:21-cv-02317-RC). The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees the sales, “acted arbitrarily in excluding foreign consumption from its emissions analysis,” which was completed by the Trump administration, the judge ruled.

Push Me, Pull You

Ironically, the Biden administration had attempted to cancel the auction. After taking...