North Slope Borough v. Minerals Management Service

MEMORANDUM *

North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (collectively, “North Slope”) challenge the Minerals Management Service’s (“MMS”) decision not to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for a proposed oil and gas lease sale on a tract of the outer-continental shelf in the Beaufort Sea. The parties are familiar with the facts; we need not recount them here. The district court found that North Slope failed to show that MMS acted arbitrarily or capriciously. We agree, and affirm.

MMS satisfied its duties under the National Environmental Protection Act (“NEPA”) by taking the requisite “hard look” at new information concerning the impact of rising oil prices on the activities related to Lease Sale 202, and issuing a finding of no new significance. See North Idaho Cmty. Action Network v. U.S. Dep’t of Trans., 545 F.3d 1147, 1154-55 (9th Cir.2008).

*275 The agency did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in determining no supplemental environmental impact statement was required to address new information about the impact of seismic activity on Inupiat subsistence activities. The impact of this new information, and the effectiveness of the…