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)."

Comments

TL;DR: The Key Sentence in the ruling

[Alaska Jack]

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

Re:So?

[twoallbeefpatties]

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?

My answer - nuke em

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Ruled by Law, not by men...

[cfulmer]

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.

Hope that judge gets disbarred

[mmalove]

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.

Re:So?

[BlueStrat]

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