Norton

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING DEFENDANTS’ CROSS-MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

The central dispute in this case is whether Defendant Mineral Management Service (MMS) must make, and provide to Plaintiff California Coastal Commission (CCC), a determination that the MMS’s grant of suspensions of certain oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) off the coast of California is consis tent with the State of California Coastal Management Program (CCMP). The Court finds that the MMS must do so. Also at issue is whether the MMS complied with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 28 U.S.C. § 2201 et seq. in granting the lease suspensions.

Plaintiffs State of California, the CCC, Gray Davis, Governor of California, and Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, move for summary judgment that MMS did not comply with the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) when it granted the requests of the lessees for suspension of the thirty-six leases at issue here without determining that the suspensions were consistent with the CCMP and providing the CCC the opportunity to review that determination. Plaintiffs also move for…