Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tex Calhoun on June 22, 2010 at 6:58

Excellent!

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Permalink Reply by Dorcheated A1 on June 22, 2010 at 7:07

Thank God, a judge with some common sense.

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Permalink Reply by drilltheshale on June 22, 2010 at 7:15

What a surprise--a Louisiana judge. This won't stand on appeal.

Looking at the reporting on his opinion, it looks like a judge is substituting his policy judgments for that of the administration--not his job. He's just supposed to decide if it's legal.

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on June 22, 2010 at 8:14

Drilltheshale:

Recommend that you stop reading the reporting and read the opinion.

The court cannot overturn the Secretary except in the case of said action being ruled "arbitrary and capricious".

Elsewhere in the ruling, it addresses your point that "The court is prohibited from substituting its judgment for that of the agency". The point was that the action did not "articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a 'rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.' " Even the experts cited by the Secretary in the case stated that the recommendations that they made were improperly cited and taken out of context in light of the recommendation made.

That being said, the ruling (link here) is preliminary.

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Permalink Reply by drilltheshale on June 22, 2010 at 9:12

As a laymen I will be limited on understanding the full opinion anyway. However, point taken. I still believe the Dept. of the Interior must have broad powers in this respect as they are permitting the privilege of oil companies to explore and produce public property (oil and gas).

The fact that every single deep water drilling major is using the same (xeroxed) spill plan which they all have admitted under oath is inadequate, plus the situation in the gulf and 11 oilfield workers dead--I'm not seeing arbitrary and capricious. That is a term I'm familiar with, having worked in a regulatory agency for the last few decades. Perhaps this is really a "technical" ruling and Interior will just have to come back better prepared.

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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on June 22, 2010 at 9:37

Remember this is the same administration who ignored the law in the GM bankruptcy and many other cases and simply did what they wanted.

They'll simply stop admitting there's a moratorium, and simply just not approve paperwork, find some theoretical excuse on each well, stonewall, etc.

"Oooh! You don't have the required listing of trans fat content posted on the wall of the mess hall for the steak you served yesterday. I'm shutting you down for a worker safety and health violation. You'll have to correct the problem, submit paperwork, get an administrative hearing for reinstatement, get a new safety inspection, and then request that your drilling permit be reinstated. We're having a lot of these violations lately, so it will probably take you a long time to schedule your hearing. We'll probably have to pull everyone who's been on the rig in the past 6 months to come in to our headquarters in Washington for depositions and a battery of medical tests and that will take extra time."

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Permalink Reply by drilltheshale on June 22, 2010 at 9:48

Hmmm...turns out Judge Feldman's disclosure forms showed him to have been an active investor in companies involved in offshore oil and gas exploration, including in Transocean (deep-water), Hercules, and Rowan (shallow-depth drilling co.'s), as well as international rig and tool provider Parker Drilling.

I think I'd ask for another judge or just head to the 5th Circuit.

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on June 22, 2010 at 12:33

Drilltheshale:

Not to point out the obvious, but the 5th Circuit is also based in New Orleans, where many other people also hold similar interests in offshore operations.

Either way, this will be appealed, likely up to SCOTUS. It would appear to me, IMHO that Interior hastily issued their ruling based loosely upon the recommendations made during the thirty-day review but also influenced by the will of the White House, and the unprecendented scope of the spill. That being said, I point to the following passage in the ruling:

"After reviewing the Secretary's report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium. The Report, invoked by the Secretary, desribes the offshore oil industry in the Gulf and offers many compelling recommendations to improve safety. But it offers no timeline for implementation, though many of the proposed changes are represented to be implemented immediately. The Report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium. It is incident-driven and specific: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others."

Interior's resolution would likely be to reissue a new ruling and moratorium either more limited in scope, greater in operational latitiude to the currently compliant, drilling and functional wells, and/or redefining the depth horizon to be more in line with the recommendations of the experts. But the current scope as I understand it essentially terminates all operations in depth greater than 500 feet. It does not allow for the implementation of additional safety controls, with accompanying inspections, or remedial operations for those wells not found to be in compliance with newly instituted guidelines and recommendations. It just calls for an 'all stop' until the moratorium was to be lifted.

An extended "pause" as it has been called, would grow functionally to include the loss of operational momentum in the Deepwater GOM, as those resources and personnel currently in use would be relocated or reduced, resulting in economic damage to both the service companies and their current personnel, and by extension the state and federal revenues lost in terms of tax receipts and additional government expenditures in adding more workers to the unemployment and/or federal program rolls. The equipment would be idled for as long as those companies could take to have them relocated, which would likely be abroad, and those companies cannot take all of those workers with them in doing it. It's not a "pause" at that point; it's a shutdown. The "restart" would then require establishing that operational momentum along the Gulf Coast again, fighting the tug and pull of those projects commissioned abroad to be requisitioned back stateside, along with all of the added costs of relocating that equipment, and restaffing the crews and service companies which support those operations. For lack of a better comparison on the fly, don't think of it as simply sending the shirt off your back overseas, and asking for it back sometime later, think of it as unraveling the shirt seams before it is sent, and then having to restitch the shirt before you can have one again, except the costs to restitch the shirt that you had is measured in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

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Permalink Reply by JHH on June 26, 2010 at 1:09

Did you see how much he owned? $15,000. Had some Exxon too. Plus i read today he sold all of his holdings... made a few thousand dollars total. A really savvy investor... took them to the cleaners. A really evil judge who had some energy investments. Maybe that judge made all those investments and then paid someone a few hundred dollars to go into the gulf and blow up the rig... just so the president could order a halt to drilling and then he could eventually rule against the president... just so someone could slam him one day for owning energy stocks...Oh yeah... he was a Reagan appointee! Give us all a break!!!! go find a hole crawl in!

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Permalink Reply by Spring Branch,mineral owner on June 26, 2010 at 1:22

Yeah, drilltheshale, that whopping $15,000 dollar investment in all those nasty energy stocks is going to really change the judge's life style forever. Yeah, he really is pressured to rule for the plaintiffs so he doesn't lose that $400! Hmmmmm!

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Permalink Reply by Joseph J. Butler on June 22, 2010 at 10:14

Why are some of yall on this website If you dont support drilling? One accident as bad as it may be should not shut down offshore drilling!

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Permalink Reply by drilltheshale on June 22, 2010 at 10:38

I certainly support sound, safe exploration of oil and natural gas. Our country currently depends upon it. I own property in the HS and my own salary depends at least indirectly on oil and gas revenues.

I think we all have concerns for safety and the land, water, and air God gave us. I think we all put safety ahead of money--even our own money. Not a paranoid sort of safety concern but reasonable and sound safety practices. This is not political or partisan, it's the right thing to do.

Think about it--ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell, as well as BP America, all testified before Congress and admitted that their (nearly identical) spill plans were completely inadequate.

We all also understand that offshore drilling has not been shut down--the moratorium idled 33 rigs. 97% of the active rigs in the Gulf are up and running.

All due respect, what's happened in the gulf is a little bigger than "one accident".

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