FEDERAL JUDGE RULES AGAINST DRILLING MORATORIUM

From NBC News:

NEW ORLEANS - A federal judge Tuesday ruled against the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill. The White House, which had hoped the ban would provide time to ensure other wells are operating safely, immediately said it planned to appeal.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by drilling companies to reverse the ban imposed by the Department of Interior, which halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.
A federal judge in Louisiana granted the drillers' request for a preliminary restraining order that would prevent the ban from taking effect.

District Judge Martin Feldman said the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning and that the moratorium seems to assume that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs countered that "continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense and ... potentially puts the safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment in the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now."

I state up front that I am not unbiased on the drilling moratorium. I believe that posturing and hypocrisy are involved in Obama's decision. Deep in my heart, I believe that deepwater drilling is not safe and will not be safe any time soon, if ever, but certainly not in six months. The ban on deepwater drilling would need to be open-ended to permanent.

Since clean-up and mitigation technology is between 30 to 50 years old, with little progress over the years, I doubt that industry and governments can catch up in six months.

Drilling can surely be made safer than the type of operation by BP on the Horizon well. Several warnings that all was not well were ignored. BP eliminated several safety steps which could have forewarned of trouble, and the company used cheaper technology and equipment that made the well less safe. Making production a priority over safety, pervaded the culture of BP. Stricter regulations and vigorous enforcement of regulations already in place by government agencies would have made drilling the well safer.

As I've said, in my humble opinion, deepwater drilling cannot be made safe, only safer. So the question is, are we ready, as a country, for the consequences of a permanent or open-ended ban on deepwater drilling? Or will we take the risks associated with ending the moratorium in six months or a year? That is the question stated in an honest way.

One thought I've had is a rig by rig thorough inspection for safety, with the rig closed down temporarily, or permanently, if necessary, if the well is shown to be unsafe during the inspection.

I freely admit that the fact that tens of thousands of people in south Louisiana stand to lose their jobs, and hundreds of small businesses that provide jobs will be adversely affected during the moratorium influences my thinking. I am not unbiased, but I do give serious thought to safety and the environment, and I know that it is urgent that we begin to wean ourselves off oil as a major source of energy and find safer, cleaner, and renewable sources of energy.