The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. December 14, 2011 Environmental Groups File Suit to Block Gulf Drilling Auction -------------------------------------------------------------- A coalition of environmental groups has filed a last-minute attempt to block the first auction of offshore oil drilling leases since the BP oil spill of April 2010. The federal government is scheduled to hold a sale today of leases covering more than 20 million acres of the Texas coast. In their complaint, the groups Oceana, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity say the federal government has failed to take sufficient steps to prevent a repeat of the BP disaster. .