(CNN)Several climate and conservation groups are suing the U.S. Department of the Interior for more information about the department’s November review of its oil and gas leasing program — a report that has been widely criticized for underlining the program’s impact on the climate crisis had bypassed.
Represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, the groups — Montana Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, and WildEarth Guardians — filed several Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year for access to correspondence between federal officials about the preparation of the report obtain.
They received documents in two responses from offices within the 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 estimates that of the documents provided to date, approximately 75% of the information has been redacted.
Interior released its long-awaited state and ocean drilling review on Black Friday last year. The review recommended increasing leasing fees and integrating environmental concerns into leasing decisions. But the report largely sidestepped the issue of climate change and did not recommend halting new oil and gas leasing — a promise President Joe Biden fought for.
“The climate crisis is a public issue; these are public bodies,” Taylor McKinnon, senior public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, told CNN. “We want to see communications, we want to see these blueprints, we want the public to be able to understand why and how the government backed off on its climate pledge on federal oil and gas leasing.”
Climate groups sharply criticized the report for not doing enough to combat climate change.
“From our perspective, the report fell really flat in terms of meeting the requirements to address the climate crisis and didn’t appear to be responsive to President Biden’s executive order to address the climate crisis,” Chillcott said. “It was a big disappointment for us. The word comprehensive doesn’t come to mind when I think of this report.”
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The government has 30 days from the date of the complaint to respond. Chillcott said she’s confident environmental groups could eventually prevail, given that US Attorney General Merrick Garland recently issued new FOIA guidelines urging agencies to be more transparent.
Still, the lawsuit itself could take months.
“I honestly don’t know how long this is going to take,” Chillcott said. “We certainly hope that this would be a catalyst for the authorities’ response, but the timeframe is uncertain at this point.”
CNN’s Liz Stark contributed to this report.
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