Environmental groups urged a district court to allow their case to continue challenging the impact of offshore oil activities on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration Network asked the US District Court for the District of Maryland on Nov. 17 to lift the stay on their lawsuit after a federal appeals court, in a separate case, ordered Gulf lease sales to continue without extra environmental protections that conservation groups had negotiated with the federal government.

Those protections won’t be applied to the next oil …