Trump Admin Sued for Approving First BP Project in Gulf Since 2010 Disaster

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 court complaint.

“The greenlighting of BP’s project sets a dangerously low bar for oil-and-gas companies that want to drill in our public waters,” Earthjustice senior attorney Brettny Hardy said.

The lawsuit comes 16 years to the day after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible offshore drilling rig killed 11 people. BP leased the vessel from Transocean to drill in the Macondo field 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.

The ensuing oil leak from a failed blowout preventer remains one of the worst in U.S. history, spilling 134 million gallons of oil into the Gulf over the course of 87 days. The light sweet crude killed marine life and polluted water and shorelines throughout the Gulf region.

BP reached a $20.8 billion settlement with Gulf Coast states over environmental, health, property and commercial damages.

“Marine wildlife and communities along the Gulf coast were devastated by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill 16 years ago,” Joanie Steinhaus, ocean program director for Turtle Island Restoration Network, said in a statement. “BP has not adequately demonstrated the capacity to operate and handle an oil spill in the high-pressure, high temperature conditions of this project.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, BP America spokesman Paul Takahashi said the lawsuit was unfounded and that the company “is fully confident in our Kaskida development plan and our ability to deliver this offshore project safely, responsibly and in compliance with U.S. regulations and industry standards.”

The Department of Interior does not comment on pending litigation.

The Kaskida project’s approval comes amid the Trump administration’s weakening of rules and regulations for energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

In March, a White House panel known as the “God Squad” exempted federally approved oil-and-gas exploration from having to follow certain Endangered Species Act requirements, such as not dumping trash into the ocean and suspending the use of noisy technology when spotting protected species such as the Rice’s whale.