The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Five-Year Program for Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing: History and Proposed Program for 2017-2022

Summary

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), within the Department of the Interior (DOI), is preparing a program for offshore oil and gas leasing on the U.S. outer continental shelf (OCS) for the five-year period from mid-2017 through mid-2022. Currently, BOEM is implementing a previous five-year leasing program for the 2012-2017 period. BOEM prepares five-year leasing programs under Section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, as amended (OCSLA; 43 U.S.C. §1331 ff). The law requires the Secretary of the Interior to prepare and maintain forward-looking plans that indicate proposed public oil and gas lease sales in U.S. waters. In doing so, the Secretary must balance national interests in energy supply and environmental protection.

BOEM’s development of a five-year program typically takes place over two or three years, during which successive drafts of the program are published for review and comment. All available leasing areas are initially examined, and the selection is then narrowed based on economic and environmental analysis to arrive at a final leasing schedule. At the end of the process, the Secretary of the Interior must submit each program to the President and to Congress for a period of at least 60 days, after which the proposal may be approved by the Secretary and may take effect with no further regulatory or legislative action. BOEM also develops a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for the leasing program, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. §4321). The PEIS examines the potential environmental impacts from oil and gas exploration and development and considers a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed plan.

On March 15, 2016, BOEM published the second draft of its 2017-2022 offshore oil and gas leasing program, known as the proposed program (PP). The PP schedules 13 lease sales, including 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and 3 in the Alaska region. No sales are scheduled for the Atlantic or Pacific regions, and an Atlantic sale proposed in an earlier draft (known as the draft proposed program or DPP) was removed from the PP. The proposed Atlantic sale, if held, would have been the first in the Atlantic region since 1983. BOEM will next publish the final version of the program, to be submitted to Congress and the President. Because the program is developed through a winnowing process, the final program (published under the title “proposed final program” to reflect the need for congressional and presidential review) may remove sales proposed in the PP but will not include any new sales.

Congress has typically been actively involved during the planning phases of BOEM’s five-year leasing programs. Although Congress has a role under the OCSLA of reviewing BOEM’s final program, the act does not require that Congress directly approve the program for it to be implemented. However, Members of Congress may convey their views on the Administration’s proposals by submitting public comments on draft versions of the program during formal comment periods, or they may evaluate the program in committee oversight hearings. More directly, Members may introduce legislation to set or alter a program’s terms. The 114th Congress has exercised all these types of influence with respect to the proposed program for 2017-2022. Congressional legislation, including H.R. 1487/S. 791, H.R. 1663, H.R. 3682, H.R. 4749, S. 1276, S. 1278, S. 1279, and S. 2011, would alter the program by adding or removing certain lease sales or making other programmatic changes.