# Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)

> BOEM is the US Department of the Interior bureau that manages development of the nation's
> offshore energy and mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Its public data
> surface is geospatial: an ArcGIS Server at gis.boem.gov publishing OCS leases, blocks,
> boundaries, wells, platforms and pipelines for five regions through OGC WMS 1.3.0 and WFS
> 2.0.0, plus two DCAT-US 1.1 open-data catalogs.

Generated 2026-09-05 by API Evangelist from live probes of BOEM's own public surfaces. BOEM
does not publish an llms.txt of its own (https://www.boem.gov/llms.txt returned 404 on
2026-09-05); this file is generated, not harvested.

## What you need to know before calling anything

- No authentication. No API key, no signup, no account, no OAuth. Every surface answers anonymously.
- No pricing, no plans, no quota. US federal public-domain data.
- READ ONLY. Every service reports capabilities "Map,Query,Data" — there is no write, no delete
  and nothing to undo.
- The contract is OGC and Esri, NOT OpenAPI. There is no openapi.json anywhere on the estate.
- PATH TRAP: the ArcGIS REST directory answers on both /arcgis/rest/services and
  /server/rest/services, but the OGC endpoints answer ONLY under /server/services/.
  /arcgis/services/... returns 404, and /arcgis/rest/services/<svc>/MapServer/WMSServer returns
  an HTML page with HTTP 200 — a soft-200, not a capabilities document.
- FORMAT TRAP: ArcGIS REST defaults to HTML. Always send f=json (or f=geojson). A request
  without it returns markup with HTTP 200.
- ERROR TRAP: ArcGIS returns HTTP 200 with an error object in the body —
  {"error":{"code":400,"message":"Failed to execute query.","details":[]}}. Parse the body.
- Paging: maxRecordCount is 10000 per query; page with resultOffset and resultRecordCount and
  watch exceededTransferLimit in the response.
- No rate limit is documented and no rate-limit header is emitted. Responses carry ETag with
  must-revalidate — poll with If-None-Match.

## Machine-readable contracts

- ArcGIS REST service catalog: https://gis.boem.gov/server/rest/services?f=json (ArcGIS Server 11.3)
- WMS 1.3.0 capabilities (per service): https://gis.boem.gov/server/services/{service}/MapServer/WMSServer?service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities
- WFS 2.0.0 capabilities (per service): https://gis.boem.gov/server/services/{service}/MapServer/WFSServer?service=WFS&request=GetCapabilities
- MarineCadastre.gov DCAT-US 1.1 catalog: https://hub.marinecadastre.gov/data.json (275 datasets)
- ESPIS DCAT-US 1.1 catalog: https://esp-boem.hub.arcgis.com/data.json (11 datasets)

## Services

- BOEM_BSEE/AK_Layers — Alaska OCS region, 9 layers
- BOEM_BSEE/ATL_Layers — Atlantic OCS region, 7 layers
- BOEM_BSEE/GOA_Layers — Gulf of America OCS region, 11 layers
- BOEM_BSEE/MMC_Layers — Marine Minerals / multipurpose composite, 18 layers
- BOEM_BSEE/POC_Layers — Pacific OCS region, 10 layers (WFS endpoint returned HTTP 400 on 2026-09-05)
- AtlanticFishGuide/Atlantic_Coast_Fishing_Atlas — Atlantic Coast Fishing Atlas, 5 layers
- Also published: regional monthly offshore wind speed, Gulf of America deepwater bathymetry
  and contours, USGS/BOEM PACSEA seabird density, West Coast fishing, West Coast canopy-forming kelp

## Recurring layers

Seven entities repeat across the five OCS regions: OCS Oil and Natural Gas Wells,
OCS Drilling Platforms, OCS Oil & Gas Pipelines, BOEM Limit of OCSLA 8(g) zone,
Submerged Lands Act Boundary, BOEM OCS Protraction Diagrams & Leasing Maps,
BOEM OCS Lease Blocks, BOEM Oil and Gas Leases, BOEM Oil and Gas Planning Areas.
Layer ids are NOT contiguous and NOT portable between services — resolve a layer by name from
the MapServer document, never by a hard-coded id.

## Worked example

Count Atlantic OCS oil and gas wells:
  https://gis.boem.gov/server/rest/services/BOEM_BSEE/ATL_Layers/MapServer/1/query?where=1%3D1&returnCountOnly=true&f=json

## Documentation

- Mapping and data (oil and gas): https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-energy/mapping-and-data
- Maps and GIS data (renewable energy): https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/mapping-and-data
- Additional sources for offshore data: https://www.boem.gov/oil-gas-energy/mapping-and-data/additional-sources-offshore-data
- MarineCadastre.gov: https://marinecadastre.gov/
- OceanReports analysis tool: https://marinecadastre.gov/oceanreports
- ESPIS environmental studies hub: https://esp-boem.hub.arcgis.com/
- data.gov datasets: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset?organization=boem-gov

## Policy

- Copyright, restrictions and permissions: https://www.boem.gov/about-boem/copyright-restrictions-and-permissions
- Disclaimer of liability and endorsement: https://www.boem.gov/about-boem/disclaimer-liability-and-endorsement
- Privacy policy (Department of the Interior): https://www.doi.gov/privacy
- Vulnerability disclosure policy: https://www.doi.gov/vulnerability-disclosure-policy
- security.txt: https://www.boem.gov/.well-known/security.txt (served, but Expires lapsed 2025-12-01)
- Contact: https://www.boem.gov/about-boem/contact-us

## What BOEM does not publish

No OpenAPI. No AsyncAPI, webhooks or event stream. No MCP server. No A2A agent card. No SDKs or
client libraries. No CLI. No Postman collection. No developer portal, changelog, status page,
SLA, deprecation policy or versioning policy. No GitHub organisation. There is no technical
support channel — only the general agency contact page.