Gulf of Mexico Drilling Impacts on Marine Species Need New Look

Conservation groups proved victorious in a years-long legal battle challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s analysis of how proposed Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operations would affect endangered and threatened species.

The agency didn’t consider all the relevant factors and had gaps in its reasoning, Judge Deborah L. Boardman of the US District Court for the District of Maryland said Monday, granting summary judgment to the environmental groups.

The Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and others sued NMFS in October 2020 over the agency’s biological opinion, which they said didn’t properly analyze the effects of extraction on ...