I did not expect Judge Feldman to grant the stay, customary in cases to be appealed. Either his person oil interests render him too corrupt, or his GOP ideology renders him too activist, or both.
The Obama administration’s efforts to suspend deepwater oil drilling were dealt another setback in court on Thursday when the federal judge who struck down the administration’s six-month moratorium refused to delay the decision’s effects.
The Interior Department petitioned Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of the United States District Court in New Orleans to grant a stay of his decision, which lifted a ban on new drilling projects and on work on the 33 rigs already in place in the Gulf.
But Judge Feldman said he was denying the delay for the same reasons he gave for his June 22 decision: that the moratorium was doing “irreparable harm” to the businesses in the gulf that depend on drilling activity and that the government had not given sufficient basis for the moratorium.
The White House imposed the moratorium in May, about a month after a fatal explosion and fire on April 20 on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which left an undersea well spewing crude oil into the gulf. The moratorium, intended to give time for improvements in rig safety measures, was “blanket, generic, indeed punitive,” the judge ruled.
Judge Feldman said on Thursday that the Interior Department now had 30 days to comply with his June 22 decision, a longer time than the 21 days he originally specified in his ruling. The government’s appeal of the ruling will be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, Ken Salazar, the Interior secretary, plans to reintroduce the moratorium in another version in the next several days, emphasizing why the moratorium is necessary in answer to the judge’s criticism.
Judge Feldman’s ruling on Thursday, denying the stay, held few surprises, given his ruling on Tuesday, but it did not mean that drilling would resume immediately.
“Does this mean companies are going to rush back to work?” asked Andy Radford, the senior policy advisor for offshore issues with the American Petroleum Institute. “There are probably too many unknowns to get a large-scale resumption of work at this point.”
Mr. Radford said Mr. Salazar has been talking about a “flexible” moratorium that could be more beneficial than the original blanket ban. It could identify “a framework where companies can meet safety requirements and have equipment inspected and get back to work while we figure what exactly is going on,” Mr. Radford said… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Personally I favor a semi-permanent ban on deep-water drilling. If there is one thing we should have learned from the GOP gusher is that neither the technology to prevent the recurrence of such a disaster, nor the the technology to adequately respond to such a disaster, exists. Until the necessary research and development is done to provide both, we must not risk another gusher. If Salazar thinks that meeting current safety regulations, gutted in the GOP emasculation of MMS, are sufficient, he should be fired and replaced.
Rachel Maddow and oil industry expert, Bob Cavner, explain why the ban on deep water drilling is necessary, and provide the perspective to show just how absurd lifting the ban would be.
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That’s right. Only the 33 drilling rigs will be effected, not the 36,000 production rigs. It will be years before we see one drop of oil from these projects, and that oil will just enter the world market, not provide the US with home produce energy as the GOP Drill Baby Dunces deceptively claim. Worst of all, since the resources use for response are collective, there are no resources left to to provide even another woefully inadequate response to another event.
In light of this, to continue deep water drilling is insane.
6 Responses to “Corrupt GOP Judge Refuses to Budge”
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Love your new GOP logo!
Thanks Fear.
But at least that judge isn’t corrupt any more. He’s sold all of his oil company stocks, so there’s no longer any conflict of interest.It’s a clean slate now.
You know, like when you get caught shoplifting, you can say “Oh, OK, I’ll just go ahead and pay for these items. We’re good, right?”
Too true, Tom. And he still has his holdings in Black Rock, a fund with over $1 billion in BP.
Tom – great analogy! It’s sad that Judge Shithead won’t even grant a moratorium until the appeal is heard. Isn’t that like a standard practice in 99% of the cases? I’ve never even heard of such a thing. However, he was still conflicted when he issued the ruling, so the ruling should be thrown out. I hope he lost a shitload of money selling his stock. Asshole.
Rachael always is spot on explaining it in simple terms that even Repubs could understand. Jindal doesn’t even know what the fluck he’s talking about, typically for a Repub politician.
It always has been, but there have been exceptions. GOP Godfather Scalia, one of Feldman’s best buddies, loves to rule on cases where his decisions enrich him personally.