Louisiana
Judge: Biden administration offshore oil and gas lease in Gulf Coast is unlawful
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An expanse of Gulf Coast federal waters larger than the state of Colorado was unlawfully opened up for offshore drilling leases, according to a ruling by a federal judge, who said the Department of Interior did not adequately account for the offshore drilling leases’ impacts on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and an endangered whale species.
The future of one of the most recent offshore drilling lease sales authorized under the Biden administration is in jeopardy after District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s finding on Thursday that the federal agency violated bedrock environmental regulations when it allowed bidding on 109,375 square miles (283,280 square kilometers) of Gulf Coast waters.
Environmental groups, the federal government and the oil and gas industry are now discussing remedies. Earth Justice Attorney George Torgun, representing the plaintiffs, said one outcome on the table is invalidating the sale of leases worth $250 million across 2,500 square miles (6,475 square kilometers) of Gulf federal waters successfully bid on by companies.
The leases in the Gulf Coast were expected to produce up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and more than 4 trillion cubic feet (113 billion cubic meters) of natural gas over 50 years, according to a government analysis. Burning that oil would increase carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tons, the analysis found.
The agency “failed to take a ‘hard look’” at the full extent of the carbon footprint of expanding drilling in the Gulf Coast, the judge wrote.
The auction was one of three offshore oil and gas lease sales mandated as part of a 2022 climate bill compromise designed to ensure support from now-retired Sen. Joe Manchin, a leading recipient of oil and gas industry donations. Another of the mandated oil and gas lease sales, in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, was overturned by a federal judge last July on similar grounds.
“If federal officials are going to continue greenlighting offshore drilling, the least they can do is fully analyze its harms,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director at Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit that is of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The drilling would also threaten the Rice’s whale, a species with less than 100 individuals estimated to remain and which lives exclusively in the Gulf Coast, according to court records filed by environmental advocacy groups.
The process did not meet the standards of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies analyzes the environmental impacts of their actions prior to decision-making around federal lands.
While Joe Biden later sought to ban offshore drilling in his last days in office, President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed a “drill, baby, drill” agenda expanding the fossil fuel industry, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and rolling back environmental regulations — including for NEPA.
The American Petroleum Institute, or API, an oil and gas trade association representing more than 600 firms and a party to the Gulf Coast case, said it is evaluating its options after this week’s ruling.
API spokesperson Scott Lauermann said the case is an example of activists “weaponizing” a permitting process, “underscoring how permitting reform is essential to ensuring access to affordable, reliable energy.”
New York
Should DNA evidence be admissible in the trial of the Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect?
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — The question of whether certain DNA evidence can be used in the upcoming trial of a Manhattan architect charged in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo Beach killings is the focus of court hearings that began Friday on Long Island.
Lawyers for Rex Heuermann want DNA tests conducted by Astrea Forensics on hairs recovered from most of the seven victims in the case to be excluded from the trial, saying the California-based lab’s method has never been accepted in a New York court of law.
But an academic expert testifying in the pre-trial hearing in Riverhead court said the type of testing used, known as nuclear DNA, or “whole genome sequencing,” is widely accepted in the scientific community.
Dr. Kelley Harris, a University of Washington professor of genome sciences, described Astrea Forensics’ method as an “elegant and powerful” way to determine whether hair fragments pulled from a crime scene match those taken from suspects.
Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown, sought to temper Harris’ testimony, noting during his cross-examination that she had no background in the forensic science used in criminal cases.
He also pressed Harris on her close ties to the co-founder of Astrea Forensics, Dr. Richard Green, who she has coauthored research papers with and considers a colleague.
He also took aim at Astrea Forensics’ use of the publicly accessible 1,000 Genomes Project, which sequenced the DNA of some 2,500 people worldwide, as the reference pool for comparing hair samples in the case.
“Hopefully the point got across that it has no business being utilized in a criminal court,” Brown said outside court.
The proceedings continue Wednesday when other experts are expected to testify before Judge Timothy Mazzei renders a decision.
Heuermann, who was dressed in a dark suit, didn’t speak during Friday’s hearing.
No trial date has been set for the case, which spans decades of killings on Long Island.
Heuermann’s legal team also wants to break the case into multiple trials over concerns about the “cumulative effect” of the evidence presented by prosecutors. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office has opposed that request. Mazzei is expected to rule on it soon.
Prosecutors argued in legal briefs ahead of the hearing that whole genome sequencing has been accepted in peer-reviewed scientific journals and by federal regulators, paleontologists, virologists and medical communities.
They say the findings by Astrea Forensics were also independently corroborated by another lab’s mitochondrial DNA testing — a methodology long accepted by New York courts.
Since late 2010, police on Long Island have been investigating the deaths of at least 10 people — mostly female sex workers — whose remains were discovered along an isolated highway not far from Gilgo Beach.
Heuermann was arrested in 2023 and charged in the deaths of three of the victims between 2009 and 2010: Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman.
While in custody, he was subsequently charged in the deaths of four other women: Valerie Mack in 2000, Jessica Taylor in 2003, Maureen Brainard-Barnes in 2007 and Sandra Costilla in 1993.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Judge: Biden administration offshore oil and gas lease in Gulf Coast is unlawful
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An expanse of Gulf Coast federal waters larger than the state of Colorado was unlawfully opened up for offshore drilling leases, according to a ruling by a federal judge, who said the Department of Interior did not adequately account for the offshore drilling leases’ impacts on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and an endangered whale species.
The future of one of the most recent offshore drilling lease sales authorized under the Biden administration is in jeopardy after District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s finding on Thursday that the federal agency violated bedrock environmental regulations when it allowed bidding on 109,375 square miles (283,280 square kilometers) of Gulf Coast waters.
Environmental groups, the federal government and the oil and gas industry are now discussing remedies. Earth Justice Attorney George Torgun, representing the plaintiffs, said one outcome on the table is invalidating the sale of leases worth $250 million across 2,500 square miles (6,475 square kilometers) of Gulf federal waters successfully bid on by companies.
The leases in the Gulf Coast were expected to produce up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and more than 4 trillion cubic feet (113 billion cubic meters) of natural gas over 50 years, according to a government analysis. Burning that oil would increase carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tons, the analysis found.
The agency “failed to take a ‘hard look’” at the full extent of the carbon footprint of expanding drilling in the Gulf Coast, the judge wrote.
The auction was one of three offshore oil and gas lease sales mandated as part of a 2022 climate bill compromise designed to ensure support from now-retired Sen. Joe Manchin, a leading recipient of oil and gas industry donations. Another of the mandated oil and gas lease sales, in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, was overturned by a federal judge last July on similar grounds.
“If federal officials are going to continue greenlighting offshore drilling, the least they can do is fully analyze its harms,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director at Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit that is of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The drilling would also threaten the Rice’s whale, a species with less than 100 individuals estimated to remain and which lives exclusively in the Gulf Coast, according to court records filed by environmental advocacy groups.
The process did not meet the standards of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies analyzes the environmental impacts of their actions prior to decision-making around federal lands.
While Joe Biden later sought to ban offshore drilling in his last days in office, President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed a “drill, baby, drill” agenda expanding the fossil fuel industry, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and rolling back environmental regulations — including for NEPA.
The American Petroleum Institute, or API, an oil and gas trade association representing more than 600 firms and a party to the Gulf Coast case, said it is evaluating its options after this week’s ruling.
API spokesperson Scott Lauermann said the case is an example of activists “weaponizing” a permitting process, “underscoring how permitting reform is essential to ensuring access to affordable, reliable energy.”
New York
Should DNA evidence be admissible in the trial of the Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect?
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — The question of whether certain DNA evidence can be used in the upcoming trial of a Manhattan architect charged in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo Beach killings is the focus of court hearings that began Friday on Long Island.
Lawyers for Rex Heuermann want DNA tests conducted by Astrea Forensics on hairs recovered from most of the seven victims in the case to be excluded from the trial, saying the California-based lab’s method has never been accepted in a New York court of law.
But an academic expert testifying in the pre-trial hearing in Riverhead court said the type of testing used, known as nuclear DNA, or “whole genome sequencing,” is widely accepted in the scientific community.
Dr. Kelley Harris, a University of Washington professor of genome sciences, described Astrea Forensics’ method as an “elegant and powerful” way to determine whether hair fragments pulled from a crime scene match those taken from suspects.
Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown, sought to temper Harris’ testimony, noting during his cross-examination that she had no background in the forensic science used in criminal cases.
He also pressed Harris on her close ties to the co-founder of Astrea Forensics, Dr. Richard Green, who she has coauthored research papers with and considers a colleague.
He also took aim at Astrea Forensics’ use of the publicly accessible 1,000 Genomes Project, which sequenced the DNA of some 2,500 people worldwide, as the reference pool for comparing hair samples in the case.
“Hopefully the point got across that it has no business being utilized in a criminal court,” Brown said outside court.
The proceedings continue Wednesday when other experts are expected to testify before Judge Timothy Mazzei renders a decision.
Heuermann, who was dressed in a dark suit, didn’t speak during Friday’s hearing.
No trial date has been set for the case, which spans decades of killings on Long Island.
Heuermann’s legal team also wants to break the case into multiple trials over concerns about the “cumulative effect” of the evidence presented by prosecutors. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office has opposed that request. Mazzei is expected to rule on it soon.
Prosecutors argued in legal briefs ahead of the hearing that whole genome sequencing has been accepted in peer-reviewed scientific journals and by federal regulators, paleontologists, virologists and medical communities.
They say the findings by Astrea Forensics were also independently corroborated by another lab’s mitochondrial DNA testing — a methodology long accepted by New York courts.
Since late 2010, police on Long Island have been investigating the deaths of at least 10 people — mostly female sex workers — whose remains were discovered along an isolated highway not far from Gilgo Beach.
Heuermann was arrested in 2023 and charged in the deaths of three of the victims between 2009 and 2010: Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello and Megan Waterman.
While in custody, he was subsequently charged in the deaths of four other women: Valerie Mack in 2000, Jessica Taylor in 2003, Maureen Brainard-Barnes in 2007 and Sandra Costilla in 1993.
Heuermann has maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty to all counts.
