Judge may rule on deepwater drilling moratorium Tuesday

A judge in New Orleans may rule Tuesday on whether to lift the federal government's moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman has said he will give his decision between early Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon on whether to issue a preliminary injunction against the six-month ban, which halts all drilling in more than 500 feet of water and prevents new permits from being issued.

Brian Collins, an attorney for the Justice Department, insisted Monday that the suspension is necessary while officials conduct a safety review after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

But a group of companies that provide boats and equipment to the offshore drilling industry filed a lawsuit claiming the government has no evidence that existing operations pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico. They want a court to declare the moratorium invalid and unenforceable.

The office of Louisiana's governor has filed a brief supporting their case.

"This is environmental disaster. Let's not make an economic disaster," Henry Dart, an attorney for the state of Louisiana, said Monday.
www.cnn.com...

[edit on 22-6-2010 by ANNED]

Lets see how powerless obama is.

It may take years just to find out the cause of the blowout.

The well will have to be plugged before the investigation can even start.

Then they will have to find investigator that are skilled in accident investigation of deep water oil well blowouts.

And these people will have to be neutral investigators not connected to the oil industry.

I do not believe these people exist and it likely will take years to find the cause.

The oil worker can not survive years out of work waiting for a investigation to be completed.

Then if the government decides that new types of equipment must be used in deep water the equipment will have to be designed, built,
and approved by the government.

Under US rules the oil companies have drilled over 30.000 wells in the gulf before BP screwed up without any major problems.

That is a lot better safety record then NASA and many government agencys.