Slashdot Mirror
Louisiana Federal Judge Blocks Drilling Moratorium
eldavojohn writes "In the ongoing BP debacle, the Obama administration imposed a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling and a halt to 33 exploratory wells going into the Gulf of Mexico. Now a federal judge (in New Orleans, no less) is unsatisfied with the reasons for this and stated, 'An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.' The state's governor agrees on the grounds that blocking drilling will cost the state thousands of lucrative jobs." The government quickly vowed to appeal, pointing out that a moratorium on 33 wells is unlikely to have a devastating impact in a region hosting 3,600 active wells. And reader thomst adds this insight on the judge involved in the case: "Yahoo's Newsroom is reporting that the judge who overturned the drilling moratorium holds stock in drilling companies. You can view his financial disclosure forms listing his stock holdings online at Judicial Watch (PDF)."
That's how it works. A portion of your pay in some firms is indirectly slotted toward campaign contributions for certain candidates. That way, the company isn't making one, big, glaring contribution.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Mr Obama decided to "inform" BP that it must put adequate funds to meet all compensation claims into an escrow account beyond its control, although he has no authority to do so. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, instructed it not to pay a dividend until all claims tied to the spill are settled. Her fellow Democrats in Congress are trying to raise BP's liability retroactively--the sort of move America's courts rightly frown on. Mr Salazar, on even thinner legal ice, suggested that the government would hold BP accountable not just for the harm directly done by the spill, but also for the jobs lost in the oil business thanks to the freeze on oil drilling in deep water that he himself has imposed.
The magazine frowns upon all these things and it makes some sense. If, as The Economist suggests, BP's value has already dropped by $89 billion and that's "far in excess of all but the most dire forecasts of the ultimate costs of the spill," what is to be gained by all this backlash against the oil industry but a bunch of political posturing?
News flash: The United States is still inexorably reliant on its oil industry. If the Obama administration wants to do something about future oil disasters, maybe it should think more seriously about that and what can be done about it. Also, had government done a better job of regulating the oil industry in the first place, BP's shoddy practices might not have gone unchecked and this disaster might never have happened.
Breakfast served all day!
Uh, no. That would be illegal. Unless they are offering an accounting service opt in where by employees could choose to donate some portion of their pay.
In any case, we're not talking about "millions" here. We're talking about less than $80,000. None of which came from PACs. $80k out of the $800,000,000 that Obama raised for his election campaign. From BP alone, the amount it's employees donated to Obama was more than the amount that it's employees and PAC donated to McCain, but for the oil industry as a whole, McCain pulled in over 3 times as much as Obama.
If it had been an Exxon or Trans-Ocean rig that had blown out, the numbers would have strongly favored McCain.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
From page 20:
The Court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the agency, but the agency must "cogently explain why it has exercised its discretion in a given manner" (State Farm, 463 U.S. at 48). It has not done so.
- AJ
They also said regulators failed to tell Obama that all active deepwater rigs passed an immediate re-inspection after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, with only two rigs reporting minor violations and the rest getting approval to continue operations.
Would those inspections be conducted by the MMS whose head was recently kicked out when it was discovered just how much they were in bed with the industry?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Having worked in nuclear power for 25+ years I know something about how accidents happen and how to prevent them. This event was a total institutional failure. BP failed, the MMS failed, the other oil companies and supporting companies failed. This is epic failure like we haven't seen since Chernobyl, worse in my view because the reactor (in this case, the well) is still critical, still on fire, and a mile under water. The blow out preventers have been shown to not work, the emergency plan has been shown to be a fraud (walruses anyone - dead people phone numbers anyone, buhler?) the technology to respond to blowouts and 10-100,000 barrel a day leaks simply does not exist, and the regulator might have well been saboteurs for all the good they did. A 6 month moratorium is not even close to enough time to fix these problems. But I would put the ball back in the industry's court, my solution would be to make 10CFR50 App B (nuclear power regulation for quality) apply to deep well drilling and tell the industry they can start drilling as soon as their CEO states under oath or affirmation (i.e. lie and its a crime) that their rigs comply. Safely handling high hazards ain't new, many industries do a fine job - BP has proven it can't and by the above revelations we have no assurance that Exxon, Shell, Halliburton or anyone else can either. Shutting down a few wells will hurt the economy of Louisiana and I say tough shit until you fix your problem. But on the other hand I never saw so many people working at a nuke like the ones that have been shut down for safety problems. Once the oil companies see what they have to do to get their practices fixed there will be many many many jobs for the people that will be doing the fixing.
The oil companies have rigs THEY bought. That money is sitting out there doing absolutely nothing. Say...Brazil has an oil field. Well, guess what, the rigs getting moved to a place where they are actually wanted, and a place where money will start coming in. As for the gulf well, just imagine you spent 15 million dollars to move your rig and now HObama says its ok to start drilling again. You think they are going to move those oil rigs back? Fat chance. Once they are gone, it might be 20 years before anyone even thinks about drilling in the gulf again and as for the jobs in that area, better learn Spanish and head to Brazil or Venezuela because those jobs are going to be gone...for good...yeah I think that about sums it up as to why its so important to get drilling started again(and yes I am all for tightening the crap out of safety regulations)
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
We can argue day and night about whether more drilling is a good idea. But that's not the question -- the real question is:
Does the law give the President the power to impose a moratorium in this situation?
If not, then it doesn't matter whether it was a good idea or not. The President is not a King or an Emperor. He does not have the authority to decree how things should be, no matter how mad he is or how great of an idea his decree is.
First, a disclaimer.
I happen to live on planet Earth. I am, therefore, somewhat biased to protect it. This bias may affect my perception of decisions, such as drilling oil wells that could have "immeasurable effects" on the ecology of the drilling site if done wrong.
Now, this article summary, and the statement from the judge, shows clearly in my opinion why we should never use the word immeasurable as a way to justify one action or another. It seems the opposition quite quickly was able to measure the impact, and the impact is about 1%. The first oil company willing to pledge enough cash to completely recover from a second disaster like the BP one, I'd say happy drilling. Until then, we need to suspend drilling holes at depths where we aren't technologically far enough along to fix things if they go wrong.
It does surprise me, that we've found the technology to destroy this planet hundreds of times over with nuclear energy, but we can't plug a hole a mile underwater. Kinda leads you to which way this planet's headed.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Six months is a very long time if you are the owner of one of the drilling rigs. Especially since there are no guarantees about how soon drilling might reasonably resume, or the pace of drilling when it does. Globally, there are other opportunities to rent out the rig. Once activities in the Gulf are shut down, it may take a few years to recover to the current level.
... We know that we must run deficits, large ones, in order to create a demand stimulus large enough to moderate this trough of the economic cycle. Nonetheless, we have politicians trying to score political points by railing against deficit spending -- which didn't bother them for the past 8 years when they were in charge. ...
While I won't argue with the fact that establishment Republicans are hypocrites, I believe your economic assertions are in error. Keynesian economics have been fully discredited, in my view. I subscribe to the Austrian School of economics, which states that reducing government spending and allowing bad debt to be liquidated is the only way to ensure the long-term stability of the economy.
What you essentially said is that my view is ignorant, but perhaps you should investigate your own claims, and explain why Keynesian economic policies of running large deficits allowed the Great Depression to persist for 15 years, if it is so obviously the solution to a troubled economy.
But my point is that there are ideas out there other than the one you believe to be true; it does not mean that people that disagree with you are ignorant.
Yahoo's Newsroom is reporting that the judge who overturned the drilling moratorium holds stock in drilling companies.
No conflict of interest here, no sir...
Just like there's no conflict of interest in the fact that the US government just loaned the Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras 2 billion dollars for offshore drilling in depths far exceeding the moratorium.
Funny coincidence also that George Soros, (who, through the Center For American Progress & John Podesta, who also headed Obama's transition team and chose who filled most of the top positions in the administration) invested a huge amount in Petrobras only days before the government's decision to invest. George Soros stands to make a killing from the drilling moratorium.
Why is the administration crippling US oil companies while investing heavily in a foreign oil company?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
pointing out that a moratorium on 33 wells is unlikely to have a devastating impact in a region hosting 3,600 active wells.
Those 33 wells are the focus of most of the high value work taking place. Finished, productive wells require very little labor or material relative to those 33 deep water wells. One of those deep water rigs is worth a hundred finished wells in terms of economic activity.
The experts cited by the government as recommending a moratorium unanimously deny making any such recommendation. The Judge voided this moratorium in part because the government just made up that part. We we're repeatedly promised fact based, expert and scientific governance by Obama.
I'm not happy with this Judge. This is just more judicial activism at work and I'm no more in favor of this instance than any other, even if the governments claims are bogus. The Interior Department has jurisdiction over the minerals of this nation and judges shouldn't be second guessing it any more than they should be imposing gay marriage on voters that reject it. Besides, I'd rather Obama and crew go into November with the moratorium in place, months after the huge layoffs in LA and the evacuation of all of the deep water rigs to South America and the African coast.
Money. It costs lots of money to have safety. The Navy doesn't need to make money, so it does things right. The oil companies want to make money, so they cut corners and play with the actuarial tables until the occasional spill just becomes the cost of doing business. Of course, since they've lobbied to have damages from oil spills capped to a pittance and they've controlled the people in charge of inspecting what safety they had, there was very little reason to be extra safe. That seems like the kind of thing worth changing.