A ruling in June by a U.S. District Court judge that would require the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service to review lease suspensions offshore California has led the federal agency to delay its scheduled public hearings next week. MMS had scheduled hearings July 10 and 12 in California on its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) covering proposed delineation drilling offshore Santa Barbara County.

MMS said that the dates, times and locations of rescheduled public hearings will be announced “when that information is available,” leaving it open ended as to whether the hearings would even be rescheduled.

On June 20, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that the MMS and the California Coastal Commission had to review lease suspensions for the 26 undeveloped Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leases off California (see Daily GPI, June 28). Even though Wilken’s decision did not address the proposed EIS, MMS officials said the public hearings had to be postponed until it can complete action that implements the court’s order.

Wilken’s ruling was the result of a lawsuit filed in 1999 against the Interior Department by offshore drilling opponent Gov. Gray Davis, the California Coastal Commission and the California attorney general’s office (see Daily GPI, Nov. 18, 1999). The lawsuit, still unresolved, seeks to block extensions of offshore leases that were granted by then Interior Department Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Although there is drilling being conducted offshore California, MMS estimates that there could be as much as 1 Bboe from the currently undeveloped leases.

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