Litigants argued that the amended lease, which removed about six million acres from the sale, would violate the text of the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a provision requiring the full lease sale in September.

Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reduced the size of the sale with the aim of protecting the endangered Rice’s whale — only about 50 of which are left in the Gulf. About one-fifth of the Gulf’s Rice’s whale population were killed in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“Despite Congress’ clear intention in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration has announced a ‘lease sale in name only’ that removes approximately 6 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico from the sale and adds new and unjustified restrictions on oil and natural gas vessels operating in this area, ignoring all other vessel traffic,” API senior vice president and general counsel Ryan Meyers said in a statement.

Read more in the full report at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, I’m Zack Budryk — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.