A ruling today by Federal Judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana granted oil drilling companies a restraining order preventing a temporary ban by the U.S. Department of Interior six-month on approval for new deepwater oil drilling.
Obama ban on deepwater drilling blocked
According to the story, oil drilling companies had charged in their lawsuit that the ban would be worse for the economy than the spill, and also that the federal administration was dragging its feet on implementing measures which would "allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit."
The department of interior argued against the charge that the ban would be as devastating to the economy as claimed, stating that less than 1% of the oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf (33 out of 3600) would be affected. The department further argued that the chance of another explosion and spill would be to great of a risk to take.
In his ruling, Judge Feldman stated that "the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning." He also rejected the idea that the failure of one rig indicates an immediate threat from all rigs.
The White House plans to appeal.
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On one hand, this strikes me as both a futile effort and a delay tactic on the part of oil companies; even without a legislated ban on new drilling, the Department of Interior doesn't have to approve new permits... all they have to do is find a reason to disapprove and there is no permit. Safety standards would suffice.
Even if the department is forced to approve permits under existing criteria, a new ban could easily be enacted under different criteria, or an appeal won by the White House.
In the meantime, there is a disturbing allegation here; the idea that the administration is rejecting possible solutions to the problem (that being the ability to ensure the safety of these rigs) in favor of taking an action which will do additional harm to the economy. I have been hearing similar allegations in conversation, and on the radio, in reference to the clean-up, though I am only catching bits and pieces. Given the nature of the situation, I certainly hope politics is not keeping possibilities for recovery at bay. That would be beyond evil! Unfortunately, given what we've seen from politicians at the State and Federal level so far, it's not too far-fetched to be believable.
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Comments: 21
There is also the secondary issue of "retraining" the idiots who weren't even enforcing the regs they HAD!
this is a bad precedent. i am not one to blanketly support any president, but if bush wanted this it would stand. the republicans wanted a powerful unitary executive and now when one tries to do something bammo -they jump on him.
it would just be sickening ironic if the overrule the ban and a week later we have another spill of a similar magnitude.
I'm unsure what precedent this Carter appointee is setting. No other environmental/industrial disaster has met with such a decision from the White House before. If the President had ordered this Day 1, it would be much more arguable that it wasn't a political decision but months later (and one assumes the bureaucracy was out reinspecting during that time) to make the call amidst heat from all sides gives ammunition to anyone thinking politics.
The original headline for the update I posted to this was on Mother Jones... I double checked by going to Reuters and searching the story out.
Is this supposed to be a legal argument, and on what kind of basis do they say this?
How many oil spills would justify a shutdown.
That judge needs to be fired.
However, alone, it isn't much of a legal argument. Allowing unadulterated sales of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco could boost the economy through more competition, lower prices, and increased employment, but I wouldn't expect to see any judge abolish the blue laws on that basis.
Judge Feldma's admonition that the Interior Department didn't prove its case probably held a lot more weight in the decision than the idea that the drillers proved theirs.
My big fear is that, because everyone is reacting politically instead of realistically, our nation will not take any useful lesson from this, and we'll be set up for it to happen again, either the same way, or in some other area and manner.
The judge has to argue from precedent that there is something unlawful or unConstitutional in the moratorium, a direct attack on executive power, a very stupid and unproductive move.
I will be waiting for more to come out about this.
The restraining order is temporary, contingent on proof from the oil industry that the the suspension was "arbitrary and capricious".