Federal Judge blocks deep water drilling moratorium

Shutting down all air travel is a pretty bad analogy.

This ban applies to 33 rigs out of 3,600 in teh Gulf of Mexico...all of which combine to supply an entirely fungible commodity, most of which don't actually even supply it yet.

 

I'm pretty sure he has no authority to tell the agency what actions to take. What he does have is the ability to demand that they supply reasoning for those actions.

 

I guess he does if he finds those actions unconstitutional. But I don't think he does if he personally believes jobs will be lost. A judge's job isn't to review laws based on loss of jobs.

 

Maybe the argument is that, since an unquantifiable amount of oil is now mixed in the oceans, an extra amount of oil, evaluated as a risk, is not statistically measurable. LOL

 

I'd like to see what sam has to say if he takes some time to study the case law. your reaction is similar to my initial reaction, his ruling doesn't seem to be based on law. but i'm no lawyer

 

the best take on it i read was this one:

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a3aHpaMZlvf0

 

Page 20 of the actual ruling.

The feds will prevail on appeal.

 

If the effect on the industry is so negligible, I wonder why people are making such a big deal about the judge's stock holdings.

 

Thank you. I think this is a very good point worth bearing in mind. However, I think it is a strong argument against recusal -- the moratorium is not signficantly damaging the judge's financial position, so there is no conflict of interest when he rules on it.

It also makes me wonder about the effectiveness of the moratorium. Drilling new holes is probably a bit more dangerous than pumping existing ones. But, we could still have major ecological disasters from existing wells, can't we? If there are 100 times as many operating wells as planned wells, then can we assume the risk of a planned well is well more than 100 times as much as one in operation?

Now, whether or not the judge's decision is a good one, I don't know. I tend to agree with those who say appeals to job losses and the like seem to be beyond the scope of the judge's function. But, ruling against capricious regulation seems defensible. I'm glad it's being appealed and that we have an appeal system. I'll just let the judicial system do its job and take whatever decision they ultimately settle on. Drill, don't drill, I'm kinda indifferent.

 

The effect on the industry of the companies that are engaged in teh 33 deepwater drilling in the gulf of mexico is palpable, in fact I even own some of those same stocks. They are down a few dollars today;

however that industry is a pretty small segment of the oil & gas industry as a whole - it has virtually no impact on the price of oil or the price you pay at the pump, and an infinitesimal impact on the larger economy which will probably be netted out after the expiration of the moratorium anyway.

This pales in comparison to the impact of a 6 month total shutdown of the Airplane industry that tangenially impacts all sorts of industries. It's not a commodity like oil - in many cases there's no viable substitute, and it's not a partial shutdown of a small portion of oil and gas exploration. It's simply not the same impact.

If you wanted to come up with an analogy that fits the airline industry, think of the grounding of a certain model of airliner with only a few in service like the new Airbus mega-jet or whatever.

 

Or like they did after the Concorde exploded a while back.

 

its actually quite a terrible analogy. 33 wells in exploration to the 3,300(however many) does not equate to every single flight for 6 months.

a better analogy would be: they release 50 new jet models to the airlines. One crashes, so they halt all other flights of that new model so they can fix the problem. It doesn't affect the thousands of other planes in the system.

 

Judge sells his stock the same day he stays the ban.

 

Good job judge!!! This deep water drilling moratorium was just another terrible idea among many to come from this TOTALLY INEPT administration. I was not a huge Bush fan but Obama is making him look good.