Trump administration sued over offshore drilling, Endangered Species Act

(Bloomberg) --Environmental groups sued the Trump administration for its “failure to comply” with the Endangered Species Act, assailing as “arbitrary and capricious” a long-awaited assessment of the harm offshore oil and gas drilling could do to wildlife.

The assessment, a biological opinion issued in March by the federal agency responsible for the protection of the nation’s ocean resources and their habitat, covers “all activities associated with the Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas program in the Gulf of Mexico” and “is projected to cover 50 years” of Gulf drilling.

Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based nonprofit environmental law organization, filed the complaint in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Wednesday on behalf of environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration Network. It names as defendants the National Marine Fisheries Service and Chris Oliver in his capacity as its assistant administrator, responsible for implementing the agency’s measures.