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[Editor's note: BP removed the cap Saturday at 12:37 p.m. CDT.]
Apparently how it goes is you can announce a moratorium, have the courts nullify it, and then go ahead and announce a new moratorium. I’m concerned about what that says about checks and balances, and where the line gets drawn. However, the stay on the moratorium was a fantastically corrupt ruling, one that put the value of corporate profits over human lives, and if it can be vacated, it should. A little torn about how I feel about this.
A federal court in New Orleans on Thursday refused to reinstate the six-month ban on drilling below 500 feet , which the Obama administration imposed after BP’s Macondo undersea well blew out on April 20.
But uncertainty over the situation—and the administration’s plans to impose a new moratorium while it investigates the causes of the explosion that triggered the well blowout — are keeping the drilling rigs shut.
“In the next several days we’ll be making an announcement about keeping the moratorium in place,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a department event in California.
“It will be a new moratorium,” he said, saying he felt the temporary drilling ban was essential.
Red alert: expect to hear that the unaccountable Obama Administration is intervening in private company business and destroying the economy. One offshore rig, the “Ocean Endeavor,” moved from the Gulf to Egypt, and I’m sure the “Remember the Ocean Endeavor” slogans are being readied on the right. A reminder to Glenn Beck when he puts it on the blackboard – endeavor is spelled with an A.
But if a government can do anything, it can police its own land. That includes the water, and if it holds the responsibility for granting deepwater leases, I fail to see how it can be compelled into doing so. Nor do I see how a lease can be irrevocable if the activities performed in conjunction with that least threaten the integrity of the United States, its coastline, its waters, and its people.
However, that seems to me a matter for the courts to decide, and even a corrupt ruling counts as a ruling. So this moratorium shell game is troubling and will only embolden those who see imperial visions of a Socialist Gubmint Takeover in their heads. If “uncertainty” is the problem, the 5th Circuit could fast-track the appeal and get this all wrapped up in the space of a week or so, obviating the need for a second moratorium.
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Oh, whoopee-do-da! The Obama Administration gave BP the green light to proceed with this extremely dangerous and risky deep-water off-shore drilling job that was at least 100 miles or so offshore and which ended up killing nearly a dozen oil rig workers, sickening and injuring millions more people, and destroyed the lives, health, well-being and livelihoods of thousands, if not millions of people residing in the Gulf area, in the first place. Why the hell should I believe that Obama’s about-face is an act of conscience? Why should I trust the man? I don’t.
The Ocean Endeavor is the second rig from Diamond leaving the Gulf. The Ocean Confidence is leaving today for Africa. If the moratorium last much longer then there will not be any semi-submersibles/drill ships in the Gulf of Mexico. They will be in other countries helping that country with revenue and jobs for their people. We will then bring oil into this country with tankers. I live on the gulf coast and am upset about the oil spill, but also know that people have to work. Seems there could be a better way to handle this situation than a ban on drilling for such a long time. It will take a year or more to get things going again with a 6 month moratorium. I don’t have a answer, but it seems this will make matters worse.
Obama is finally showing that he’s got a spine? Why am I suspicious? There’s got to be a catch.
Might not this little exercise have been at least somewhat useful in that it lured a few nitwit judges out from their little hide-outs under the bridge?
OFF with their robes, I say! Forthwith! I grow weary of them and their ilk!
No. I’m not kidding. Sick at heart and grieving would always be close at hand, however.
Thank you for the update. Trust no one these days. It seems nothing is too horrific to argue away in today’s society. These folks DO realize we have only one world to mess up, don’t they? How can supposedly smart people be so clueless?!
How can people go to work with oil and Corexit wafting over the entire Gulf, now moving upwater into the bayous, rivers and so forth? Taking down those oil rigs will put people who work in oil out of work, yes. But right now who can make a living off the water doing what they used to do?
“BP purchased the mineral rights for Macondo at the Minerals Management Service’s lease sale in March 2008″, 10 months before the Obama administration took office.
Thanks for the fact check. It’s beyond disconcerting how quickly people blame Obama for piles of offal tossed by the previous tenant.
Ooops. Here’s the source for that quote.
And Adie @ 7–thank you.
I work out of Fourchon, La and have seen shrimp boats shrimping like normal. As I fly over the gulf going to work I see boats fishing and shrimping. I am thankful I am able to work at the present time, but who knows about the future. I just hope I can put food on the table and keep a roof over my family’s head. Yes I like to fish and go to the beach. And did so last week. But if I cannot survive and provide for my family what then? We need to look after the environment it’s the only one we have. So I have mixed feelings on this. I have no faith in politics, Dems or Reps. I just know if things go to far left or right it hurts the everyday people trying to make a living.
Also forgot to mention. When flying out of Fourchon I have not seen oil on the water as far as I can see from a chopper.
I’m not torn at all. The sooner fossil fuels are banned the better.
How far is Fourchon from the blowout?
I don’t understand how or why the courts are involved with this, since it has to do with safety. It would appear the gulf leases are all open to question. So if the government tells you not to drill you are on your own no matter what the 5th circuit says. Maybe that’s why some of these guys are leaving town. (I suppose they could take up each lease one at a time.)
It is a power grab.
Obama is openly defying the courts.
If he gets by with this, he doesn’t need to obey judges anymore.
As I understand it, the new moratorium order was crafted to answer some if not all of the objections cited by the judge who threw out the initial order. The judge didn’t say “You can’t issue a moratorium.” He said “You didn’t go about it in the right way.” Per bmaz’s original post on this, the judge’s exact words were (in part):
Emphasis added.
So now, if the new order presents the evidence the judge said was lacking, and offered a cogent explanation for their exercise of discretion, the new moratorium order is just what the court demanded.
Far from ignoring the court, it looks to me as if the administration is trying to comply with it.
Link to bmaz’s original post here.
Fourchon is about 15-20 miles from Grand Isle. Not sure exactly how far from the well site.
I don’t have mixed feelings at all. Clearly these judges are compromised and ruled in their own self interests. I don’t think issuing a new moratorium goes far enough. These judges should be taken to task as well.
Glad to see the rigs leave. Even a small and brief break for this region of the planet is worth the jobs. There are lots of folks looking for work and adapting to new jobs. Louisiana oil hands surely can do as well as Louisianans in the fishing and tourist industry are expected to.
And in America, we don’t use a ‘u’.
you seem to be right. I surmise that a blanket moratorium won’t hold water but if you go after specific leases among the 33 for said reasons of safety you can make it stick. Still if the government told me to hold off on the drilling for awhile, I think I would, notwithstanding the judge. You really don’t need the coast guard and the revitalized MMS all over your tail. I mean the US is the lessor and could do some “inspectin” here.
Nor are there any apostrophes or schwas.
Most people want to get away from fossil fuels, but not over night. We need direction and time to get there. Not over night and not in 50 years. Over night would hurt millions of people. Take to long and it hurts us also. Leadership to get us in the right direction and time constraints. To quick and we hurt millions; no food or transportation and jobs. To long and we hurt millions with the environment; food and well being. We have no leadership in Washington, now or in the past few decades. People are tired of the fighting among parties. Forget all the BS and lets work this out.
What’s fascinating, in a nauseating way, is to see Obamaphiles make excuses for Obama, who clearly is up to his neck in collusion with BP and with the offshore drilling industry.
Nice way to make excuses for no change. ONe of the main reasons a society needs a strong safety net is so that needed changes can happen quickly. But when your ‘responsible’ ‘adult’ leadership denies the need for a strong safety net, yes, then indeed the fear of change becomes the reason for no change.
For once Obama is right. The court decision was plainly vicious and needs to be challenged head on.
Things have never gone to the left at all, much less too far to the left.
I see fishing and shrimping going on today in this region. Take down the oil industry over night and you will hurt La more than people think. It would be six or seven digit jobs losses.
No matter how you feel about Obama and it’s undeniable that he doesn’t have many if any reactionary defenders here, it can’t be denied that these judges are clearly conflicted and should have recused themselves but then that’s why the suit was originally filed where it was, in order to get the friendliest possible judges. I don’t see any industry “collusion” real or imagined, having any bearing on that fact.
I find this hard to believe. News reports of Port Fourchon paint a different picture. Understandable considering the corner that the Louisiana’s corrupt politicians have put their citizens into. They are even afraid to say anything negative about th e oil industry that is killing their citizens and the way of life.
Just where are they fishing? The NOAA map includes your area in the ban. Link Here
Citizen mplo:
“Why should I trust the man?”
Oh fer Christ’s sake, you don’t hafta “trust the man” or the politician, most of us don’t but if yer gunna whack the guy when he announces sumpthin’ that is correct then you’d cut off your leg ‘cuz ya got a sore toe. For God’s sake, when the truth is catchin up with all the corporate muderers, terrorists and bunko artists and their economy is goin’ bankrupt, don’tcha think ya ken do sumpthin more than howl at the moon and piss on a dead horse?
This is very helpful, thanks.
Port Fourchon itself may be right there, but there are various inland areas near there that are open, and they are not that far from the northwestern corner of the off-limits area. If they take their boats west to (and past) Vermillion Bay, they are in the clear.
I’m pretty sure you’ll find that the administration didn’t make a case for a moratorium, and deliberately so. The Federal judge and the Court of Appeals judges confirmed that. It means the administration isn’t as concerned about deepwater wells as they pretend to be. They are the obstructionists, not the courts.
that is not surprising. My aim was to point out however that people are not freely going about things the way they have been able to — no oil in sight flourishing fishing grounds, nice rosy scenario. In fact I think the CNN folks are diving in the water not too far from Grand Isle and it appears to be mostly cloudy soup of dead marine life and s few sharks.
well it is unlikely any jobs will be lost given all the jobs created by the cleanup, also it is unlikely a mere oil rig worker would travel in a helicopter to inspect the damage. This poster is probably a paid astroturfer.
well it is unlikely any jobs will be lost given all the jobs created by the cleanup, also it is unlikely a mere oil rig worker would travel in a helicopter to inspect the damage. This poster is probably a paid astroturfer.
Book Salon up at the Mothership with Robert Kuttner’s A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Alliance with Wall Street hosted by Mark Thoma
in a month not many people will be working on spill since there is very little oil being seen offshore and even less coming inshore. The dispersants are working like they are supposed to. once relief well is finished in a couple of weeks every thing needs to go back to normal
You are not very good astroturf.
Do you think we don’t watch the news on television, and online news? There is oil all over the place and the dispersants are killing throughout the water column. The Gulf has become a soup of dead marine life, oil and dispersants.
Yes I am a oil field worker. I fly to my platform in the Gulf of Mexico in the South Timbalier block, south south west of Port Fourchon. About a 20 minute flight. I can see Grand Isle when we are in the air. Yes there is a very big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but as of 9 days ago when flying out to the platform, I saw no oil, but did see shrimp boats. They were not dragging oil booms. They were shrimping. From my platform I see fish swimming everyday. I visited Destin Florida 3 weeks ago and swam in the water with no oil to be seen. Yes there is a very big oil spill and it is a catastrophe.
too bad that so much of the oil is in plumes below the surface and not visible from the air.
that’s the main problem. too many people tend to believe what they see on tv. I’m not saying there is no oil but tv has to sensasionalize it for ratings. the dispersing and clean up is working well.
We make drinking water from the water of the Gulf of Mexico. We draw it up with submersible pumps that are 30-40′ below the surface of the water. Look I know I sound like nothing is wrong in the Gulf, but there is a very big problem with the spill. I have just stated some facts that I have seen myself. Just use your heads, be critical of all info you get, mine included. Check things out dig for info, just don’t believe all the talking heads or things you read on the internet. The news media wants ratings, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, all of them. They dramatize things like they always do to have contriversy. Ratings sell. Yes the spill is having bad affects, but not everything is dying here and it is not everywhere on the coast or offshore. Do some research on other spills. Compare data that you find, listen to all, but distance yourself from them to make up your own mind. I not talking about just how it affected the environment, but people and their lively hood. Yes we need to get away from petro, but it is used in alot of things we use everyday, not just for fuel. If people could just listen with open minds from all sides and take in things then step back and think. We’re not going to sit back and sing kumbyya, but at least lets try to do something together. This has gone past just the oil spill for me, sorry, but I hear it from my friends on the right that I’m to liberal (communist), then friends on the left that I’m to conservative (capitalist pig). Just tired of all the bickering. We could work away from petro dependency within a 5-10 year period if the nation wanted it like we did the moon race. Just not cold turkey.
says who, your boss bp?
the talking heads on the tv are not anonymous like you, and arguing with a strawman like you!
I’m interested to know how dispersing oil makes it easier to cope with, clean up, detect.
Edit: It has been alleged by a large body of science that dispersed petrochemicals are easier to metabolize, but I don’t think that is what you mean.
David Dayen is upstairs!
Alan Greenspan, Wrong Again
facts are facts. very little oil is coming ashore so something must be working right. skimming does very little since it is a very light crude. a lot just evaporates.
You seem to missing quite a lot.
http://www.gulfcoastspill.com/
If oil disperses before it surfaces, and is suspended below the surface in a lighter concentration where it can be consumed by sea life, how is that good? So what washes up on beaches, that oil which is visible, is not so much fact as illusion when we are talking about damage to the Gulf.
Were it were to wash up on beaches in high concentrations, you could point to that as evidence of something.
again that is very small bits of oil in comparison to the total volume of the spill. something is working right.
You are simply wrong. Quoting the BP website is just passing on propaganda.
I am a biological scientist so I am able to discriminate quite well. I trust the marine biologists and scientists as well as my lying eyes. .
naturally occuring microbes in the gulf eat the dispersed oil. that’s a good thing. mother nature taking care of us. the environment will be fine but the country will not be without oil.
A “small” percentage of a billion gallons is still pretty hefty.
I work down in grand isle. not on the spill but i talk some of my friends who are workers and they spend most of their days doing absolutley nothing. as for as the media is concerned, when a small concentrate of oil does appear (rarely) they all take the same footage and make people believe that the beaches are covered.
Those bacteria eating oil deoxygenate the water leading to kill offs and dead zones. The Gulf stands a good chance of becoming one large dead zone, At least the northern portion as it blends into the already huge one at the mouth of the Mississippi.
as much as I love seafood, I would rather have a few dead fish than a lot more people on the govt. dole. nature will take care of that.
Between 20,000 and 80,000 barrels of oil daily.
Those are some hearty microbes.
There are not enough microbes to consume what is NOT landing on the beaches, and the microbes that DO consume oil leave problems of their own behind, as TalkingStick relates.
If you’ve been a fisher or shrimper or otherwise depended on the Gulf for your livelihood all your life, then your job is LOST. There may be clean-up jobs available, but probably at less pay and, from news reports we’ve seen, BP is not reliable when it comes to paying for the work you’ve done. And who the heck wants to put their very lives in danger doing the clean up? Check this out.
I personally hate BP but they are being raped by our government in this. they, at least, have stepped up to the plate and are paying for everything even thought because of the govt, they are overpaying for the overkill spectacle that is being put on. You and I will be paying for that soon.
I have friends wtih 20′ boats that are being paid $1800 per day to ride around and look for oil. they may rather be fishing but they can make more money in a year doing that the they can make in 5-6 years
I hope you are open to expanding your vision regarding the impact of this event on all life. And our humaneness and responsibility to each other and the earth. This is an excellent place to begin. Link here
emptywheel is upstairs!
DOD Allows Carol Rosenberg to Return to Gitmo Next Week
Well, I don’t have such friends. I rely on the news, including reports posted here at FDL.
So you’d rather have more drilling and oil spills so that maybe the oystermen and shrimpers can lose their livelihoods forever?
Exactly. The OP is off-base in his concerns about what this means for checks and balances. Agencies have the right to make decisions like this. The only thing Feldman said was that Interior had failed to articulate a sufficient rationale for its complete moratorium. All Interior is going to do now is provide the rationale the judge claimed was lacking.
FWIW, I’m a lawyer, and I don’t agree with Feldman’s ruling. He admitted that there was evidence to support the agency’s decision. If that’s the case, then he should have deferred to the agency’s judgment. He ignored basic principles of administrative law. Now that we’ve found out about his stock holdings, I think we know why.
I see the charts, but I still have not seen the oil.
This is a first major blowout/oil spill in US waters. Thousands of wells have been drilled.
That may be but it shows that all it takes is one. And this one has shown that all the industry claims of their awesome abilities to control things after a blowout were just so much pissing in the wind
Spoken as a true [Edited by Moderator. Disagree without being disagreeable]. Do you now think your savior, the poser in the WH, is now above the law? He sure does!
Liberalism is a disease!
Welcome to the Lake – Here’s your introductory reading material.
How blind are Conservatives?
They saw Bush run up the debt, take us into an illegitimate war, torture and various other criminal things. They saw the economy tank huge.
Then they saw the Obama economy turn around on a dime to begin recovering and now we’re more respected in the world for our efforts to reduce nuclear weapons and to end the problems with Iran and for not continuing Bush policies.
But somehow the Conservatives still believe Liberalism is a disease. Amazing. They are completely blind to any failings of their dear leader and they imagine endlessly about the Socialist Obama and other fantasies. They are indeed insane.