Oil Service Companies Ask Judge to Lift Obama’s Offshore Moratorium (Updated x2)
[Guest post by DRJ]
UPDATED AND BUMPED TO TOP: After a 2-hour hearing, Judge Feldman announced he would rule by Wednesday.
UPDATE 2: The Houston Chronicle reports Judge Feldman indicated he may rule as early as tomorrow. In addition, a similar challenge was filed by Diamond Offshore in Houston last Friday. In addition to the administrative law claims, however, Diamond also claims the moratorium violates the constitutional protection against the federal government taking private property without due process of law or just compensation.
The Houston Chronicle reports a New Orleans federal judge will hear arguments Monday in a case seeking to lift President Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling. Last week, the Louisiana Record reported Judge Martin Feldman denied the government’s request for a delay in the hearing. The Record’s report provided more details on the Plaintiffs’ claims, including that tomorrow’s hearing is an injunction hearing.
The plaintiff has the burden in a preliminary injunction case in federal court but if there is a justiciable claim, the court may decide to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits can be held. Here, preserving the positions of the parties could support enjoining the moratorium.
As for the case itself, the government’s position is that a 6-month moratorium is needed for safety reasons, while Plaintiffs argue there is no basis for the ban because post-spill inspections revealed at most minor safety violations on the remaining Gulf rigs. Plaintiffs’ claim is based primarily on administrative law.
The government may have a problem proving that a blanket 6-month moratorium is reasonable if the Court decides the proper test is to balance one BP blow-out vs decades of safe offshore drilling.
— DRJ
Rule of Law FTW!!!!!
(we can hope %-)
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 6/20/2010 @ 11:07 pmAll they (the oil service company) have to do is to introduce the press release from those scientists (touted by Salazar/Obama) refuting the Interior report that is the basis for the moratorium. The Governments own experts say that the moratorium presents more danger to the environment than continuing operations, and that they never signed-off on the Governments moratorium.
AD - RtR/OS! (71ba66) — 6/20/2010 @ 11:32 pmThey should call the experts that Teh One and Salazar said agreed with them in doing this as their first witnesses.
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:17 amBaracky Chavez loves us and only wants to keep us safe from the oils.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:40 amIn May, MMS found no violations of governing regulations or systemic problems on 27 of the 29 drilling rigs inspected and only minor violations on the other two.
That’s a lot empirical, no?
Wasn’t this supposed to be the Science! administration?
Lol.
This little country is a joke.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:52 amThey hate science that does not fit with Teh Narrative. Teh Narrative must be preserved at all costs.
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:56 ami hope this suit succeeds, but bluntly, I don’t think it will.
i remember laughing very hard when watching the movie “Top Secret!” when the daughter of the scientist explained that they had escaped America in a baloon during the Carter administration.
Now, i am inquiring about the price of hot air baloons.
Yeah, i am joking, but not by much.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:01 ambut aren’t these the same dirty socialist whores what were all over the idea of you break it you buy it in Iraq?
They’re not quite as fond of accountability when it’s our own broken little country at issue.
happyfeet (19c1da) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:03 amThe worst part of this is when this administration had a real opportunity to discuss the relative costs of deep water vs. shallow water drilling, they chose instead to prostrate themselves at the enviros feet. Even worse, instead of discussing real alternatives to oil drilling (i.e. nuclear), they did the fairy land tale of wind and solar…again. I’d wager that the science knowledge of these guys is worse than most 4th graders, but that wouldn’t be fair to actual 4th graders. After all, one of their leaders thinks that natural gas isn’t a fossil fuel.
Dmac (e47b06) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:35 amOh yeah, and the Allies liberated Auschwitz.
Dmac (e47b06) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:35 amAnd Secretary Chu, didn’t know oil and gas, was in his purview, and Salazar or Napolitano, I forget which doesn’t know it’s not an Ocean it’s a Gulf
ian cormac (38cac7) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:48 amChu won a Nobel, so he has absolute MORAL AUTHORITAH !!!!
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 6:52 amThis sounds like the Big Showdown.
Is Obama an emperor or a man? Judge Feldman will decide.
Patricia (160852) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:19 amI think that people do not realize the severe economic consequences of this “moratorium”. Not only are drilling operations halted but that means that drilling platforms are going to be relocated to foreign waters. This is because no one can afford to leave these very expensive structures idle for months at a time. Remember that BP’s error was made to try to cut a few days off the use of the drilling platform.
Those rigs once moved and used in foreign waters are not going to come back quickly.
The moratorium is also idling workers in the US. Obama has probably killed more jobs with the moratorium that he’s actually “created” with the trillion dollar faux “stimulus”.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:23 amFeatures and bugs, SPQR. Features and bugs.
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:31 amdmac:
> The worst part of this is when this administration had a real opportunity to discuss the relative costs of deep water vs. shallow water drilling, they chose instead to prostrate themselves at the enviros feet.
I don’t know if you mean to make this impression, but you sound like you think this is obama caving to their demands. my view is this is what he wanted all along, and this is just the first opportunity to do it.
drill baby drill was killing in him 2008, so he made some promises he never wanted to keep and now has the excuse to break.
Never let a good crisis go to waste, you know?
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:37 amJD, you know that in 1985, back when I was writing software, I actually had a vendor claim that a bug in their “C” compiler was a feature rather than a bug. For real. So that joke hurts me, JD, it hurts me down deep to this day.
** sigh **
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:41 amOops, sorry, SPQR. But you understand what I meant.
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:43 amj/k JD. You know better than to take me seriously.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:44 amI would apologize, but I don’t feel like it, so I will apologize for not apologizing.
JD (d55760) — 6/21/2010 @ 7:48 ami want to say i am sorry for not having anything to apologize for, nor do i have an apology to retract. oh, except for the apology i just made, which i hearby retract.
ow, i made MY brain hurt with that one.
Aaron Worthing (e7d72e) — 6/21/2010 @ 8:00 amI don’t know if you mean to make this impression, but you sound like you think this is obama caving to their demands. my view is this is what he wanted all along, and this is just the first opportunity to do it.
I have yet to see Mr. Awesome employ this cute trick – by – half. It would indicate a measure of competence that so far has been sorely lacking. It would be wonderful if this was indeed the case, but I highly doubt it.
Dmac (e47b06) — 6/21/2010 @ 8:26 am#22 Dmac:
Absolutely. I think that when Mr. Awesome accidentally achieves a strategic goal in his desired imposition of the conditions to make a spontaneous socialist revolution arise, he is unable to realize it because it isn’t the short term tactical goal he was looking for~so he then tries to fix his own “mistake,” which is what he wants except he didn’t want it right then.
I’d call him a comedy of errors, except that there are real people who will die of starvation because of a pronounced and prolonged contraction of the world economy as a result of doofus’ total incompetence, and that is tragic rather than funny.
EW1(SG) (754dc4) — 6/21/2010 @ 8:44 amWe certainly can hope that the evidence presented in this case points out the two paragraphs added by Salazar to the statement already signed by the eight members of National Academy of Engineers.
It was those two paragraphs which justified the moratorium, and is glaring illumination of the dishonesty of the Obama administration. Addition of those paragraphs is roughly equivalent to falsifying evidence, and the Judge will be free to respond accordingly.
Insufficiently Sensitive (8906ed) — 6/21/2010 @ 9:07 amMass punishment is what this is (the moratorium, that is) of all oil companies, the American public and their economy, and the legal process.
JD/SQPR — features and bugs. Right.
Users must not stack conditionals more than
sixteenfifteen deep, even across function calls. Return accumulator contents as the function value if this is done and do not call runtime error.Very close to the comment I added to the appropriate place in the compiler code. This was kept until the next Major version of the compiler, when where it remained as an option for at least two decades. -shortstack
Why this precise behavior was called for I never found out.
htom (412a17) — 6/21/2010 @ 9:59 amOne blowout’s enough, given how incompetent we know the MMS is. It’s prudent to have competent reinspections of wells before anything gets restarted, and stupid for people to oppose it given the size and economic impact of this ‘one spill.’ I understand rig workers are impacted, but 11 of them just got killed because of safety lapses. ‘Mass punishment’ is a strawman argument.
JEA (cfcb76) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:40 amMass punishment is a strawman argument, or an accurate description of what has happened?
Odd that the experts that the Barcky admin cited absolutely, beyond dispute, disagree with your ASSertions.
JD (41e5f8) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:46 amJEA – Shutting down the wells is MORE dangerous than allowing them to continue to operate.
The scientific opinion that this is neccassary was fraudulently manufactured.
More than 3500 wells have been drilled in the Gulf with no significant problems until now.
Obama’s MMS gave specific permission to BP to modify the normal procedures in this case.
Have to go to work now so those points will have to stand on their own for now.
Have Blue (854a6e) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:51 amOh I would just add that putting more lawyers who have no
Have Blue (854a6e) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:52 amideafrikken clue about well drilling in MMS is going to work out real well.Have Blue – Those points can stand on their own because they are true.
JD (41e5f8) — 6/21/2010 @ 10:53 amWe are about to find out what the rule of law is worth.
bill-tb (541ea9) — 6/21/2010 @ 11:08 amThis pix shows how Teh Won’s overriding concern about the Gulf situation just overpowers his ability to appreciate his surroundings….
AD - RtR/OS! (a2aeeb) — 6/21/2010 @ 11:08 amhttp://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/06/026572.php
I updated the post twice.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 6/21/2010 @ 12:27 pmBeck things the moratorium is designed to help Petrobas, a Soros investment and recipient of a $2B loan from Obama’s government. Of course, BP’s lobbyist is Tony Podesta, brother of nutty John of Obama overlord CAP.
I think I am now officially a conspiracy believer. Can’t wait to pick out my new tin foil hat.
Patricia (160852) — 6/21/2010 @ 3:59 pmThe moratorium may not have been designed to help Petrobas, but it sure will help them. That is less outrageous than the fact that the moratorium actually makes it less safe, and is the exact opposite of what the experts said. Couple that with the misrepresentations from Barcky and Salazar, and a pattern emerges …
JD (41e5f8) — 6/21/2010 @ 4:59 pmI think that judge will grant the injunction tomorrow or Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what Obama’s next move will be. Supreme Court ? This will become the story, not Barton’s apology or Hayward’s sailing.
Mike K (82f374) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:28 pmIt says
Bag Of Excremen … I’ll be quiet.
htom (412a17) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:29 pmHenceforth to be known as BOEMRE (boomer)!
AD - RtR/OS! (a2aeeb) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:33 pmIf you got nothing, rearrainge the deck chairs.
AD - RtR/OS! (a2aeeb) — 6/21/2010 @ 5:34 pmRuling by judge. Moratorium enjoined.
SPQR (26be8b) — 6/22/2010 @ 11:29 am