Planning areas are used to support mostly the National Oil and Gas Program but also other BOEM Programs consisting of a schedule of lease sales indicating the size, timing and location of proposed leasing activity the Secretary of Interior determines will best meet national energy needs. For oil and gas lease sales the Program covers a five year period following its approval, and an area must be included in the current 5-Year Program in order to be offered for leasing. Section 18 of the OCS Lands Act prescribes the major steps involved in developing a 5-Year Program including extensive public comment steps. These polygons are clipped to the Submerged Land Act Boundary and Continental Shelf Boundaries.

These data were created in the applicable NAD83 UTM Projection and re-projected to WGS84 Geographic. Because GIS projection and topology functions can change or generalize coordinates, these GIS files are NOT an OFFICIAL record for the exact boundaries. These files are to be used for Cartographic purposes only and should not be used to calculate area.