The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has published notice of BOEM’s intent to prepare a Supplemental EIS for OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sale 193 in the Chukchi Sea Planning Area, Alaska. This SEIS will provide new analysis in response to a remand by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This SEIS will supplement the analysis from the Oil and Gas Lease Sale 193 Final EIS (OCS EIS/EA MMS 2007–0026) and the Oil and Gas Lease Sale 193 Final Supplemental EIS (OCS EIS/EA BOEMRE 2011–041) by providing an updated oil and gas exploration, development and production scenario and associated environmental effects analysis.
BOEM will issue a new Record of Decision after evaluating this SEIS and public comments. Implementation of the Secretary’s selection among the alternatives will require the Secretary to either reaffirm, modify, or vacate the leases previously sold.
There will be no scoping conducted for this SEIS. The scope of the Final EIS for Sale 193 and the remand by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit establish the scope for this SEIS.
The Draft SEIS will be announced for public review and comment: (1) In the Federal Register by BOEM and the Environmental Protection Agency; (2) on the BOEM Alaska OCS Region homepage; and (3) in the local media. Public hearings will be held following release of the Draft SEIS. Dates and locations will be determined and published at a later date.
Click here to read BOEM’s Federal Register notice of intent to prepare SEIS.
