Alaska Outer Continental Shelf, Cook Inlet Planning Area, Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258

Alaska Outer Continental Shelf, Cook Inlet Planning Area, Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258

BOEM issued a modified Record of Decision (ROD) for Cook Inlet OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258, affirming the sale as originally held on December 30, 2022, and the single lease issued from it. The ROD follows a July 2024 federal court remand requiring a supplemental EIS to address three NEPA deficiencies. After analyzing nine alternatives and several sub-alternatives in the December 2025 supplemental EIS, the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management selected Alternative 6, which incorporates exclusions for beluga whale and northern sea otter critical habitat and temporal restrictions on seismic surveys to protect marine resources.

Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska Region, Cook Inlet Planning Area, Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258

BOEM published a Notice of Intent to prepare a supplemental EIS for OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sale 258 in the Cook Inlet Planning Area, Alaska. The supplemental EIS responds to a July 2024 remand by the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, which found three deficiencies in the original 2022 final EIS: failure to consider a reasonable range of alternatives for lease blocks, failure to take a hard look at vessel noise impacts on Cook Inlet beluga whales, and failure to analyze cumulative beluga whale impacts separately from other marine mammals. No new lease sale will result; instead, a modified Record of Decision will affirm, modify, or vacate the single lease already issued.