In managing Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) activity, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has two core responsibilities, safe offshore operations and environmental protection. Our safety goal is to ensure incident free minerals exploration and development on Federal offshore leases. Our environmental responsibilities are to ensure that all activities on the OCS are conducted with appropriate environmental protection and impact mitigation. The MMS New Orleans Regional Office conducts all leasing and resource management functions on the OCS for the Gulf of Mexico Region (GOMR) and the Atlantic Region OCS areas, a total of 415 million acres in seven planning areas (see map in Section 1.2).