Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska Region, Cook Inlet, Proposed Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258
| Published date | 10 September 2020 |
| Citation | 85 FR 55859 |
| Record Number | 2020-20032 |
| Section | Notices |
| Court | Ocean Energy Management Bureau |
55859
Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 176 / Thursday, September 10, 2020 / Notices
Application Comments: Interested
persons may submit comments
regarding the specific use proposed in
the application and plan of
development and management, whether
the BLM followed proper administrative
procedures in reaching the decision, or
any other factor not directly relating to
the suitability of the lands for the use as
a campground, while maintaining,
preserving, and improving the
campground.
Any adverse comments will be
reviewed by the BLM Montana/Dakotas
State Director or other authorized
official of the Department of the Interior,
who may sustain, vacate, or modify this
realty action. In the absence of any
adverse comments, the classification
will become effective on November 9,
2020. The lands will not be offered for
conveyance until after the classification
becomes effective.
Before including your address, phone
number, email address, or other
personal identifying information in any
comment, be aware that your entire
comment, including your personal
identifying information, may be made
publicly available at any time. While
you can ask us in your comment to
withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we
cannot guarantee that we will be able to
do so.
Authority: 43 CFR 2741.5.
Eric D. Lepisto,
Field Manager, Miles City Field Office.
[FR Doc. 2020–20007 Filed 9–9–20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310–DN–P
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
[Docket No. BOEM–2020–0018]
Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska
Region, Cook Inlet, Proposed Oil and
Gas Lease Sale 258
AGENCY
: Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, Interior.
ACTION
: Call for information and
nominations.
SUMMARY
: The Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management (BOEM) is issuing this Call
for Information and Nominations (Call)
for proposed Lease Sale 258 in the Cook
Inlet Planning Area in 2021, as included
in the current 2017–2022 Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas
Leasing Program (2017–2022 Program)
that BOEM published on November 18,
2016. The purpose of this Call is to
solicit industry nominations for areas of
leasing interest, including nominations
or indications of interest in specific
blocks within the Call Area. BOEM will
also use the Call to gather comments
and information for consideration in
planning for this proposed OCS oil and
gas lease sale. Given the long lead time
needed to prepare for a lease sale,
BOEM is beginning the planning
process for this potential sale at this
time. However, this Call is not a
decision to hold a lease sale in the Cook
Inlet Planning Area, but to evaluate the
area described herein for potential oil
and gas leasing.
DATES
: All nominations and comments
submitted in response to this Call must
be received by BOEM no later than
October 13, 2020. BOEM will consider
submissions sent by mail so long as they
are postmarked by the last day of the
comment period.
ADDRESSES
: Public Comment
Submission Procedures: All public
comments should be submitted through
one of the following methods:
1. Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://
www.regulations.gov. In the field
entitled, ‘‘Search,’’ enter ‘‘BOEM–2020–
0018’’ and then click ‘‘Search.’’ Follow
the instructions to submit public
comments and view supporting and
related materials available for this
notice;
2. U.S. Postal Service or other delivery
service to the following address: Chief,
Leasing Section, BOEM, Alaska Region,
3801 Centerpoint Drive, Suite 500,
Anchorage, Alaska 99503–5823. Send
your comments in an envelope clearly
labelled, ‘‘Comments on the Call for
Information and Nominations for
Proposed Lease Sale 258 in the Cook
Inlet Planning Area.’’
Nominations/Indications of Industry
Interest Submission Procedures: To
ensure security and confidentiality of
proprietary information to the
maximum extent possible, please send
nominations/indications of interest and
other proprietary information to Chief,
Leasing Section, BOEM, Alaska Region,
3801 Centerpoint Drive, Suite 500,
Anchorage, Alaska 99503–5823. Send
your nominations in an envelope clearly
labeled, ‘‘Nominations for Proposed
Lease Sale 258 in the Cook Inlet
Planning Area.’’
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
:
Patricia LaFramboise, Regional
Supervisor, Leasing and Plans, Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management, Alaska
Region, 3801 Centerpoint Drive, Suite
500, Anchorage, AK 99503–5823,
telephone (907) 334–5200.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
:
2017–2022 OCS Oil and Gas Leasing
Program: The Secretary of the Interior
signed the ‘‘Record of Decision (ROD)
and Approval of the 2017–2022 OCS Oil
and Gas Leasing Program’’ on January
17, 2017, and the 2017–2022 Program
became effective on July 1, 2017.
Information on the development of the
2017–2022 Program, PEIS, and ROD is
available on BOEM’s website at: http://
www.boem.gov/Five-Year-Program-
2017-2022/.
During development of the 2017–2022
Program, BOEM analyzed three options
for the Cook Inlet Program Area: (1)
Targeted Leasing, (2) Beluga Whale
Critical Habitat Exclusion, and (3) the
No Sale Option. In the ROD, the
Secretary chose the Targeted Leasing
Option for the proposed Cook Inlet
Lease Sale 258. Under the Targeted
Leasing process, BOEM uses scientific
information and stakeholder feedback to
determine which specific areas offer the
greatest resource potential, while
minimizing potential conflicts with
environmental values, subsistence uses,
and other uses.
Environmental Review Process: BOEM
intends to prepare an Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS), in accordance
with the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA), covering the proposed lease
sale described in this Call. BOEM is
publishing, concurrently with this Call,
a NOI to prepare an EIS. The lease sale
EIS will evaluate the potential effects of
leasing on the human, marine, and
coastal environments, and through this
process BOEM may develop measures
and lease stipulations to mitigate
adverse impacts for the options being
analyzed. Several consultations will be
conducted concurrently with the NEPA
process. These consultations include,
but are not limited to, those required by
the Endangered Species Act, the
Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act,
Section 106 of the National Historic
Preservation Act, and Executive Order
13175—‘‘Consultation and Coordination
with Tribal Governments.’’ These
consultations will assist BOEM in its
leasing decisions.
BOEM’s Leasing Process: BOEM’s
regulations for planning and holding an
oil and gas lease sale are found at 30
CFR 556.300–309.
(1) Call for Information and
Nominations: See section below.
(2) Area Identification: Based on the
information and nominations submitted
in response to this Call, BOEM will
develop a recommendation of the area
proposed for further leasing
consideration and environmental
analysis. Upon approval by the
Secretary, BOEM will announce the
proposed area identified for leasing in
the Federal Register, in accordance with
30 CFR 556.302(a)(3).
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(3) Proposed Notice of Sale (NOS): If
BOEM proceeds with consideration of
leasing after completion of Area
Identification and environmental
analysis, it will publish a Notice of
Availability of a Proposed NOS in the
Federal Register and send the Proposed
NOS to the Governor of Alaska for
comment and recommendations on the
size, timing, and location of the
proposed sale. The Proposed NOS
describes the size, timing, and location
of the proposed sale, and provides
additional information on the area(s)
proposed for leasing, proposed lease
terms and conditions of the sale, and
proposed stipulations to mitigate
potential adverse impacts on the
environment.
(4) Final Notice of Sale (NOS): If
BOEM decides to proceed with leasing,
it will publish a Final NOS in the
Federal Register at least 30 days before
the date of the lease sale. The Final NOS
describes the place, time, and method
for filing bids and the place, date, and
hour for opening and publicly
announcing bids. It also contains a
description of the area(s) offered for
lease, the lease terms and conditions of
the sale, and stipulations to mitigate
potential adverse impacts on the
environment.
Call for Information and Nominations
1. Authority
This Call is published pursuant to the
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act
(OCSLA), as amended (43 U.S.C. 1331–
1356), and the implementing regulation
at 30 CFR 556.301.
2. Purpose of the Call
The purpose of this Call is to solicit
industry nominations for areas of
leasing interest and to gather comments
and information from the public on the
area(s) being considered for the
proposed OCS oil and gas lease sale in
the Cook Inlet Planning Area in 2021.
Pursuant to 30 CFR 556.301, BOEM
seeks comments from industry and the
public on:
(a) Industry interest in the area
proposed for leasing, including
nominations or indications of interest in
specific blocks within the area;
(b) geological conditions, including
bottom hazards;
(c) archaeological sites on the seabed
or near shore;
(d) potential multiple uses of the
proposed leasing area, including
subsistence and navigation;
(e) areas that should receive special
concern and analysis; and
(f) other socioeconomic, biological,
and environmental information.
Information submitted in response to
this Call will be used to:
•Inform the Area Identification
process under 30 CFR 556.302;
•Prioritize areas with potential for
oil and gas development;
•Develop potential lease terms and
conditions;
•Identify potential use conflicts and
potential mitigation measures; and
•Assist in BOEM’s planning and
environmental review process.
3. Description of the Call Area
The 2017–2022 Program includes one
proposed lease sale in the northern
portion of the Cook Inlet Planning Area.
This area identified for potential leasing
represents approximately 20% of the
total Cook Inlet Planning Area. It is
located offshore the State of Alaska,
extending from the 3-nautical mile (5.6
kilometers) seaward limit of State of
Alaska submerged lands, roughly from
Kalgin Island in the north to Augustine
Island in the south. The Call Area
consists of 224 OCS blocks covering
about 1.09 million acres (442,875
hectares).
A map depicting the Call Area is
available for download on the BOEM
website at: http://www.boem.gov/ak258.
Copies of Official Protraction Diagrams
(OPDs) also are available for download
on the BOEM website at: https://
www.boem.gov/Maps-and-GIS-Data/.
4. Instructions on the Call
BOEM requests that parties interested
in leasing indicate their interest in, and
comment on, the acreage within the
boundaries of the Call Area that they
wish to have included in the proposed
lease sale. Respondents should
explicitly outline the areas of interest
along block lines and rank the areas or
specific blocks in which they are
interested, according to their priority,
using the following indicators: 1 [high],
2 [medium], or 3 [low]. Respondents are
encouraged to be as specific as possible
in prioritizing blocks and supporting
nominations of specific blocks with
detailed information, such as relevant
geologic, geophysical, and economic
data. Areas where interest has been
indicated, but on which respondents
have not indicated priorities, will be
considered low priority. Respondents
may also submit a list of blocks
nominated by OPD and Leasing Map
designations to ensure correct
interpretation of their nominations.
OPDs and Leasing Maps are available on
BOEM’s website at https://
www.boem.gov/Maps-and-GIS-Data/.
BOEM also seeks comments from all
interested parties about particular
geological, environmental, biological,
archaeological and socioeconomic
conditions, use conflicts, or other
information about conditions that could
affect the potential leasing and
development of particular areas.
Comments may refer to broad areas or
may refer to particular OCS blocks.
5. Protection of Privileged or Proprietary
Information
BOEM will protect privileged or
proprietary information, which industry
submits, in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and
OCSLA requirements. To avoid
inadvertent release of such information,
all documents and every page
containing such information should be
marked with ‘‘Confidential—Contains
Proprietary Information.’’ To the extent
a document contains a mix of
proprietary and nonproprietary
information, the document should be
clearly marked to indicate which
portion of the document is proprietary
and which is not. Exemption 4 of FOIA
applies to trade secrets and commercial
or financial information that you submit
that is privileged or confidential. The
OCSLA states that the ‘‘Secretary shall
maintain the confidentiality of all
privileged or proprietary data or
information for such period of time as
is provided for in this [Act], established
by regulation, or agreed to by the
parties’’ (43 U.S.C. 1344(g)). BOEM
considers nominations of specific blocks
to be proprietary, and therefore BOEM
will not release information that
identifies any particular nomination
with any particular party, so as not to
compromise the competitive position of
any participants in the process of
indicating interest.
However, please be aware that
BOEM’s practice is to make all
comments, including the names and
addresses of individuals, available for
public inspection. Before including your
address, phone number, email address,
or other personal identifying
information in your comment, please be
advised that your entire comment,
including your personal identifying
information, may be made publicly
available at any time. In order for BOEM
to withhold from disclosure your
personal identifying information, you
must identify any information contained
in the submission of your comments
that, if released, would constitute a
clearly unwarranted invasion of your
personal privacy. You must also briefly
describe any possible harmful
consequence(s) of the disclosure of
information, such as embarrassment,
injury or other harm. While you can ask
us in your comment to withhold from
public review your personal identifying
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information, we cannot guarantee that
we will be able to do so. BOEM will
make available for public inspection, all
comments submitted, with the
exceptions just noted, by organizations
and businesses, or by individuals
identifying themselves as
representatives of organizations or
businesses.
Walter D. Cruickshank,
Acting Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management.
[FR Doc. 2020–20032 Filed 9–9–20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310–MR–P
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
[Docket No. BOEM–2020–0018]
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Alaska
Region (AK), Cook Inlet Planning Area,
Proposed Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258
AGENCY
: Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, Interior.
ACTION
: Notice of intent to prepare an
Environmental Impact Statement and
provide public scoping opportunities.
SUMMARY
: Consistent with the
regulations implementing the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
(BOEM) is announcing its intent to
prepare an Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for the proposed 2021
Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258 in the Cook
Inlet Planning Area. The EIS will focus
on the potential effects of leasing,
exploration, development, and
production of oil and natural gas in the
proposed lease sale area. In addition to
the no action alternative (i.e., not
holding the lease sale), other
alternatives will be considered.
DATES
: All interested parties, including
Federal, State, Tribal, and local
governments, and the general public,
may submit written comments by
October 13, 2020 on the scope of the
Lease Sale 258 EIS, significant issues,
reasonable alternatives, and potential
mitigation measures.
Comments may be made online at
https://www.regulations.gov/. Search for
Docket BOEM–2020–0018, or ‘‘Oil and
Gas Lease Sales: Alaska Outer
Continental Shelf; Lease Sale 258,’’ and
click on the ‘‘Comment Now!’’ button.
Enter your information and comment,
and then click ‘‘Submit.’’ Before
including your address, phone number,
email address, or other personally
identifying information in your
comment, you should be aware that
your entire comment—including your
personally identifying information—
may be made publicly available at any
time. While you can ask us in your
comment to withhold your personally
identifying information from public
review, we cannot guarantee that we
will be able to do so. Pursuant to the
regulations implementing the
procedural provisions of NEPA, BOEM
will provide the public the opportunity
to provide comments on the scope of the
Lease Sale 258 EIS. To protect the
health of local communities and
minimize in-person contact during the
Covid-19 pandemic, public scoping will
be conducted online. To participate in
the scoping process, interested parties
can visit BOEM’s virtual ‘‘meeting
room’’ at https://www.boem.gov/ak258-
scoping any time through October 13,
2020. This ‘‘meeting room’’ page will
include:
•An overview of the lease sale.
•Links to pages with more
information on the NEPA process, the
BOEM National Program, and the
natural and human environment in
Cook Inlet.
•A field for readers to submit
questions to BOEM electronically.
Responses to questions will be posted
on www.boem.gov/ak258-scoping.
•Directions for providing written
comments on https://
www.regulations.gov.
In addition, BOEM will hold two live
virtual meetings during the 30-day
scoping period. Details of these
meetings will be posted on
www.boem.gov/ak258-scoping with the
publication of this Notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
: For
information on the Lease Sale 258 EIS,
the submission of comments, or BOEM’s
policies associated with this notice,
please contact Amee Howard, Project
Manager, BOEM Office of Environment,
Alaska Region, 3801 Centerpoint Drive,
Suite 500, Anchorage, AK 99503, (907)
334–5200.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
: On
November 28, 2016, the Secretary of the
Interior (Secretary) released the 2017–
2022 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing
Proposed Final Program (Proposed Final
Program). The Proposed Final Program
includes the proposed 2021 Cook Inlet
Lease Sale. On January 17, 2017, the
Secretary issued a memorandum with a
decision to proceed with the OCS
leasing program as described in the
Proposed Final Program.
The proposed lease sale area consists
of 224 lease blocks and covers
approximately 442,875 hectares (or 1.09
million acres) located offshore of the
State of Alaska in Federal waters in the
northern portion of Cook Inlet. For more
information, go to: https://
www.boem.gov/ak258.
This Notice of Intent is not an
announcement to hold a lease sale but
is a continuation of the information
gathering process and is published early
in the environmental review process in
furtherance of the goals of NEPA. The
comments received during scoping will
help inform the content of the Lease
Sale 258 EIS. If, after completion of the
EIS, the Department of the Interior’s
Assistant Secretary for Land and
Minerals Management chooses to hold
the proposed lease sale, that decision
and the details related to the proposed
lease sale (including the lease sale area
and any mitigation) will be announced
in a Record of Decision and Final Notice
of Sale.
Scoping Process: This Notice of Intent
also serves to announce the scoping
process for identifying key issues to be
addressed in the Lease Sale 258 EIS.
Throughout the scoping process,
Federal, State, Tribal and local
governments, and the general public
have the opportunity to provide input to
BOEM in determining significant
resources, issues, impacts, reasonable
alternatives, and potential mitigation
measures to be analyzed in the EIS.
BOEM has developed and seeks public
input on the following draft alternatives:
•Beluga Whale Mitigation
Alternative. This alternative is proposed
to minimize potential impacts to the
ESA-listed, Cook Inlet Distinct
Population Segment (DPS) beluga
whale.
•Northern Sea Otter Mitigation
Alternative. This alternative is proposed
to minimize potential impacts to ESA-
listed, Southwest Alaska DPS of the
northern sea otter.
•Gillnet Fishery Mitigation
Alternative. This alternative is proposed
to reduce the potential for conflicts with
the Cook Inlet drift gillnet fishery.
Maps and more details on each of these
draft alternatives can be found at:
https://www.boem.gov/ak258.
These draft alternatives are based on
and in response to stakeholder
comments made during the
development of the 2017–2022 Draft
Proposed Program, the 2017–2022
Proposed Program and Draft
Programmatic EIS and the Cook Inlet
Lease Sale 244 (held in 2017) NEPA
process. BOEM is proceeding in a
manner that allows for maximum
flexibility in use of the components of
these preliminary alternatives in future
decision making.
BOEM will consider additional
alternatives, exclusions, and/or
mitigation suggestions identified during
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