Obama Loses: Drilling Ban
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
June 22 (Bloomberg) — A New Orleans federal judge lifted the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by President Barack Obama following the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Yep. No surprise on this one:
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman today granted a preliminary injunction, halting the moratorium. He also “immediately prohibited” the U.S. from enforcing the ban. Government lawyers told Feldman the ban was based on findings in a U.S. report following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig off the Louisiana coast in April.
Government lawyers lied? What else is new?
Specifically, experts cited in the report have come out and repudiated it, claiming it was edited after their input was received by the Administration and the conclusions did not represent their views.
Further, the administration apologized for this misrepresentation:
"The experts who are involved in crafting the report gave us their recommendation and their input and I very much appreciate those recommendations," he said. "It was not their decision on the moratorium. It was my decision and the president’s decision to move forward."
In a letter the experts sent to Salazar, they said his primary recommendation "misrepresents" their position and that halting the drilling is actually a bad idea.
Did the administration withdraw this report and it’s alleged "expert recommendations" that were not actually made? It appears not.
“The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium,” Feldman said in his 22-page decision. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”
Actually, we do know why, but I’ll get to that in a minute. For the purposes of the hearing, however, the Judge was correct.
“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,’” Feldman said, citing a previous ruling. “It has not done so.”
Exactly.
“We need to make sure deepwater drilling is as safe as we thought it was the day before this incident,” Brian Collins, a lawyer for the government, told Feldman in a court hearing June 21. “It is crucial to take the time because to fail to do so would be to gamble with the long-term future of this region.”
Really?
How about the fact that MMS rubber-stamped the well design change on the casing just days before the well blew up? (Known from Congressional testimony.)
That MMS appears to have known about earlier gas kick problems at the well site, and thus had no reason to approve those changes? (Reported publicly.)
That MMS also appears to have intentionally ignored regulations requiring blowout preventers to be certified operational and capable of shutting in a well at all times.
And finally, there were four specific safety problems identified with the blowout preventers – some of them identified four or more years ago.
Why did the well blow up?
Because the regulators didn’t regulate.
Does this justify a "full stand-down" order? No.
It justifies arresting the MMS employees responsible.
It justifies arresting the BP employees responsible.
And, if Transocean has responsible employees who are still alive, it justifies arresting them too.
For?
Manslaughter, for starters. 11 men are dead.
The judge was correct in issuing his injunction, and the malfeasance and misfeasance in this agency is uniquely owned by President Obama. A year and change into the administration, if he was unhappy with the people at MMS, he could have replaced them.
He did not.
The buck stops on his desk, and there are 11 dead men’s heads that are sitting square on it in the Oval Office.
Solve the problem, yes. But the problem lies with the Government that has refused to enforce the law, just as was – and still is – the case with the banks.
