BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco announced in a press conference Tuesday the State of Louisiana has reached a settlement in its suit to stop the Minerals Management Service (MMS) from conducting any further oil and gas lease sales in the Western or Central Gulf of Mexico until it has prepared a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) covering the next sale in these areas.

The new EIS must consider the impacts associated with all past, present and future reasonably foreseeable Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing activity, including those activities associated with Lease Sale 200, held in August 2006.

The State filed the suit in March, claiming the MMS had failed to properly assess the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and Rita on the Louisiana coast when it accepted bids on Lease Sale 200.

A complete copy of the Governor’s statement as well as a link to a video of the entire press conference is located at the following link:

http://www.gov.louisiana.gov/

Sidney Coffee, Chair of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and Senior Advisor to the Governor for Coastal Activites and Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle will be available for comment regarding today’s press conference.