The Regulation of Seismic Exploration in the United States

The International Association of Geophysical Contractors posted the following notice:

“Africa Oil Week 2019

Monday, November 04, 2019 – Friday, November 08, 2019 CST

Cape Town International Convention Centre 2
Cape Town, South Africa

Africa Oil Week is the leading oil and gas event for the continent, with over 1500 key executives attending from around the world to broker new deals. The global E&P community – government, NOCs, international oil companies, independents, investors and service providers – is brought together here like no other event.”

Click here for more details and relevant links.

The State of South Carolina has moved to intervene as a plaintiff in the court challenges to NOAA/NMFS’ Marine Mammal Protection Act permits for seismic oil and gas exploration off parts of the U.S. Atlantic coast.  This litigation is in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

The South Carolina federal district court in court in South Carolina Coastal League v. Rosshas extended the deadline for the federal government’s response to the plaintiffs’ complaint until April 11, 2019.  This is the second response extension for the federal defendants that the court has granted.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has a Record of Decision for proposed Gulf of Mexico regionwide oil and gas Lease Sale 252. This Record of Decision identifies BOEM’s selected alternative for proposed Lease Sale 252, which is analyzed in the Gulf of Mexico OCS Lease Sale: Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement 2018.

Click here for more information and relevant links.

The Record of Decision is available on BOEM’s website at http://www.boem.gov/nepaprocess/

Physic.Org posted the above-titled article, which reads in part as follow:

“A recent paper on the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in northern Europe (“Elevated trawling inside protected areas undermines conservation outcomes in a global fishing hot spot”) reveals that industrial-scale fishing – primarily the use of bottom-trawl fishing – is widespread in so-called protected areas that were established specifically to safeguard highly biodiverse marine and coastal habitats across the North Sea. We welcome this important and timely piece of research. Unfortunately, a number of the press reports that covered this paper’s findings included sensationalist – and misleading – headlines that are potentially very damaging to the cause of marine conservation.”

This International Research Conference will meet in Rome on March 5-6, 2019.

Its website states that:

“The International Research Conference is a federated organization dedicated to bringing together a significant number of diverse scholarly events for presentation within the conference program. Events will run over a span of time during the conference depending on the number and length of the presentations.

On February 8, 2019, the judge in the South Carolina Atlantic IHA litigation ordered the Federal Defendants to respond to the plaintiffs’ complaint by April 5, 2019.  This deadline may be further extended because the plaintiffs have said they may file an amended complaint.

The Center for Regulatory effectiveness filed comments on the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Notice of Intent to perform an Environmental Impact Statement for BOEM’s Proposed 2019 Beaufort Sea Oil and Gas Lease Sale.

CRE’s comments (footnotes omitted) include the following Executive Summary:

“BOEM seeks comments on the scoping of an EIS that ‘will focus on the potential effects of leasing, exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas in the’ Beaufort Sea Program Area.1