CHAPTER X 
OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT 
Activities and events associated with the exploration 
and development of offshore oil and gas resources may have 
direct and indirect effects on marine mammals and the ecosystem 
of which they are a part. The Bureau of Land Management has 
been delegated responsibility by the Secretary of the Interior 
under the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lands Act, as 
amended, for predicting, mitigating, and detecting the 
adverse effects of OCS oil and gas development. The National 
Marine Fisheries Service and the U. S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service are responsible, under the authority of the Marine 
Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, for 
reviewing proposed actions and advising the Bureau as to 
measures that may be needed to assure that the proposed 
actions will not be to the disadvantage of marine mammals 
and other wildlife. The Commission reviews the relevant 
policies and activities of these agencies, and recommends 
actions that appear necessary to conserve marine mammals and 
their habitats. The Commission's activities in this regard 
during 1980 are discussed below. 
Proposed OCS Lease Sale #60, 
Lower Cook Inlet - Shelikof Strait 
The proposed sale, tentatively scheduled to be held in 
September 1981, includes 153 tracts (349,917 hectares) of 
submerged lands in the Lower Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait area 
of Alaska. The area is inhabited, either seasonally or 
permanently, by twenty-one species of marine mammals, 
seven of which are listed as "endangered" under the Endangered 
Species Act. 
With a few exceptions, the Draft Evironmental Impact 
Statement, which was prepared by the Bureau of Land Management, 
provided a reasonably thorough and accurate assessment of 
the possible direct and indirect effects of the proposed 
action on marine mammals. It concluded, among other things, 
that activities and events associated with the proposed 
action are not likely to have significant direct or indirect 
effects on any endangered species or populations of marine 
mammals, but they could have significant direct or indirect 
effects on non-endangered populations of sea otters, harbor 
seals, sea lions, beluga whales and, perhaps, other marine 
mammals that occur in or near the proposed lease sale area. 
