Judge Blocks Deep Water Drilling Moratorium

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/us/23drill.html

by jbooth • 16 years ago

2 8 16 years ago

jbooth3• 16 years ago

From the judge:

He wrote that “the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”

Personally, if I have a component fail violently and no explanation why, then I tend to err on the side of caution until I have some answers.. but that's just me. I'm sure this judge knows what he's doing.

hga5• 16 years ago

For an evenhanded report on the decision including a link to the actual decision, try The Volokh Conspiracy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889

Here's the words that are wrapped about the about incendiary NYT quote:

"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm. While the implementation of regulations and a new culture of safety are supportable by the Report and the documents presented, the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.

On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium.

As a matter of law, I suspect the judge does know what he's doing. And we are, or at least aspire to be, a nation that lives under the rule of law, not men.

Also, as he notes: "no one yet fully knows why", which is very different from "no explanation why". We know quite a bit about how this happened, probably enough to prevent it from happening again with the current state of the art.

BP wasn't following industry best practices, wasn't listening to its subcontractor, saw a bunch of large red flags as previously noted in in submissions to HN, etc. etc. Prior to the inevitable new regulations, we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon.

After all, the last one was 30 years ago (Ixtoc I); the real danger will be when people become complacent again.

jbooth3• 16 years ago

The extra words don't change what he's saying at all, or make it particularly less incendiary.

Yeah, it was a tragedy, I love puppies, blah blah, but here's what I'm saying: "Even though this blew up and nobody knows why, and even though this was allegedly safe under the previous inspection regime, I see no reason to stop drilling for 6 months while we figure what went wrong."

The preamble doesn't change anything.

hga5• 16 years ago

Here's what a law professor considers to be the key finding in the decision (http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/06/gulf-oil-spill...):

"Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them."

Judges don't tend to view blatant lies with favor.

Judge Blocks Deep Water Drilling Moratorium

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