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Notice of Availability (NOA) of the 2019-2024 Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program and Notice of Intent (NOI) to Prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

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Environmental Defense Fund filed 1 comment on this docket between May 28, 2018 and May 28, 2018. 407 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 3063d ago.

What Environmental Defense Fund filed (1)

May 28, 2018· Comment from James Tripp, Environmental Defense Fund· BOEM-2017-0074-10746

Before the Department of Interior Hearing Regarding Off-Shore Oil and Gas Development Statement of James T. B. Tripp, Senior Counsel March 2, 2018 James T. B. Tripp, Senior Counsel jtripp@edf.org The Environmental Defense Fund is a national, not-for-profit national environmental national organization. It was founded by scientists from Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratories, among other scientific institutions, in 1967 in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York. We appreciate this opportunity to offer some preliminary remarks about proposed New York off-shore oil and gas development activities. We offer the following three points: We oppose opening these areas to new drilling. The risks to coastal communities, tourism, fisheries and sensitive ecosystems far outweighs any potential benefit from offshore development. In addition, any prioritizing of off-shore areas for oil and natural gas development runs counter to the policy direction established by New York with its Governor calling for the development of 2.4 GWs of OSW by 2030. NYSERDA has recently published its "Offshore Wind Policy Options Paper" dated January 29, 2018 that, among other things, requests DOI/BOEM to move forward with two initial annual offshore wind procurement rounds with additional rounds anticipated in the future. DOI has held one major auction for OSW leasing that Statoil won. Successful implementation of these OSW opportunities will take time so that they can proceed sensitively with improved monitoring, accountability and data quality to protect fishing grounds and operations. From our extensive experience in the Gulf coast region where EDF is actively working on restoration of the Mississippi River Delta, it is clear that off-shore oil and gas exploratory and development requires massive on-shore infrastructure in terms of rig manufacturing, oil and gas pipelines, off-loading facilities, servicing operations, refineries and so forth. The New York region is ill-equipped to provide that infrastructure and service that industry. New York, like adjoining states, would have to investigate the feasibility and impacts of the development of that infrastructure and be prepared to make findings about the consistency of that infrastructure with the Coastal Zone Management Act. Those are the issues that would need to be investigated in the first instance before DOI/BOEM proceeds with proposals to offer off-shore lands for this purpose.

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Abstract

Notice of Availability (NOA) of the 2019-2024 Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program and Notice of Intent (NOI) to Prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

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