By Ella Nilsen, CNN
Represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, the groups – Montana Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians – filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests last year to access correspondence between federal officials on the drafting of the report.
They received documents in two responses from bureaus within DOI, including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, but they were redacted, Barbara Chillcott, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, told CNN.
Chillcott estimated that of the documents provided so far, about 75% of the information has been redacted.
Interior released its long-awaited review of drilling on federal lands and oceans on Black Friday last year. The review recommended an increase in leasing fees and consideration of environmental concerns in leasing decisions. But the report largely sidestepped the issue of climate change and didn’t recommend a halt to new oil and gas leasing – a promise President Joe Biden campaigned on.
“The climate crisis is a public issue; these are public agencies,” Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, told CNN. “We want to see communications, we want to see those drafts, we want the public to be able to understand why and how the administration backpedaled from its climate promise in federal oil and gas leasing.”
Climate groups roundly criticized the report for not doing enough to address climate change.
