Offshore oil and gas leasing near Alaska might continue — someday— which is the best that can be said about the Interior Department’s decision on the matter Wednesday.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled all lease sales previously planned for the next two years in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, saying the environmental risks need more study.

Supporters of the delay try to use a 2009 federal court order as cover for Salazar’s decision. But the court ruling provides about as much cover as one could find today on the frozen surface of the Arctic waters in question — scant.

The court decision did order the department to conduct a more thorough environmental analysis of proposed leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. But the court’s decision focused on what was primarily a procedural flaw in the previous administration’s approach to the analysis. On every substantive environmental issue in the case, the court ruled in favor of the government’s decision to conduct a leasing program.

The court agreed only that the Interior Department erred when it limited its “environmental sensitivity” analysis to relatively near-shore regions rather than the entire outer continental shelf area proposed for leasing. “The law plainly requires that Interior examine and compare the environmental sensitivity of different areas of the OCS,” the court stated. This was a technical flaw easily addressed by completing the review.

The Interior Department completed the review and upheld existing leases. But it essentially decided to take another two years to complete the analysis for any additional leases. The justification is thin. Contrary to the assertions of those who oppose leasing, the court did not rule that the department lacked the biological information it needed to judge the risks of offshore leasing. In fact, the court specifically dismissed such assertions. “This argument is wholly without merit,” it said in its unanimous ruling.

Some have cast Salazar’s decision as a compromise because he did not cancel existing leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, as if he had that unilateral authority in the first place. Canceling the leases would require the federal government to cut refund checks to oil companies for the billions they have spent on rights to drill. That would require a congressional appropriation, just as was approved in 1990 when Congress canceled leases in the North Aleutian basin in reaction to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

And upon what would the secretary have based a cancellation recommendation, anyway — an argument that a federal court has already declared to be “wholly without merit?” He rightly chose not to walk out on that thin ice.