Trump Admin Sued for Approving First BP Project in Gulf Since 2010 Disaster
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Environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over its approval of the first British Petroleum drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which occurred 16 years ago this week.
The Habitat Recovery Project, Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity are plaintiffs in the case against the U.S. Department of Interior and its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The environmental law group Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on their behalf Monday in the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
Other defendants in the case are Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management director Matthew Giacona.
The suit alleges that BP failed to prove it has the capacity to drill safely within the Kaskida project’s location, which the plaintiffs say will be in riskier waters and drill deeper underground than the Deepwater Horizon. BP’s development proposal underestimated the worst-case scenario of an oil spill at Kaskida by at least half a million barrels of oil as well, and the company failed to prove it has the capacity to contain a blown-out well, according to the........
