Excerpt from Bloomberg:
U.S. in Contempt Over Gulf Drill Ban, Judge Rules
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins – Feb 3, 2011 11:53 AM PT
The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.
Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.
“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling.
“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt,” Feldman said.
President Barack Obama’s administration first halted offshore exploration in waters deeper than 500 feet in May, after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast led to a subsea blowout of a BP Plc well that spewed more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
full story here: U.S. in Contempt Over Gulf Drill Ban, Judge Rules
h/t to WUWT reader paddylol
Contempt usually results in immediate jail time for contemplation of the primacy of the rule of law, doesn’t it?
I have a little list, and they never will be missed!
These people won’t stop until they are made to stop. They regard the law as either a tool to further their agenda or an inconvenience to it.
The administration wants to use lifting the ban as a bargaining chip in negotiating an energy bill with the Republicans. That’s its motive, I think.
There are no consequences.
Now the house can call hearings and have the secretaries that are in contempt explain why they disregarded the courts.
Here is the height of stupidity…
Cuba has 18 blocks of drilling rights for sale,
located in the Florida straights – that’s between Key West and Cuba – effectively 30 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. – and approx 1000 ft deeper than the busted BP well in the gulf.
We are not allowed to drill off of our own coast…..
…obviously everyone else can
Because of our embargo with Cuba, if any one of those “foreign” wells springs a leak…
….we can not even try to fix it
Wait.
I think someone need to get their heads (and special interest registers) throughly checked/audited.
Allow me an analogy to see if I correctly understand this:
If a house burnt down because people ran through the house with flaming torches , and subsequently, the local authority banned the use of flaming torches indoors, which is then lifted because the flaming torch industry lobbied for it, then reimposed because it’s REALLY NOT SAFE to use flaming torches indoors, the authority is “in contempt” ?
WUWT ?
Our would be king has a lot of trouble with authority and the constitution. First he lost cap n trade in the senate and decided to go around the legislative branch via the EPA. Then he lost the drilling moratorium and chose to go around it by not issuing permits. Now obamacare has been struck down by the courts, but they plan on continuing to implement it anyway.
Our prez seems to find the rule of law an inconvenience to be sidestepped and head faked instead of the structure of our society. I couldn’t imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would go on if a prez with an (R) behind his name were pulling this.
Won’t matter. Feldman is not a Party member, therefore his authority is Unauthority, his orders are Disorders, and his injunctions are Unjunctions. They do not exist and never did exist. The Party shall continue its Great Leap Forward without obstruction.
I haven’t seen an instance where the law applies to the Political elite…. Are they not a power unto themselves???…..
Obama cares not a whit what any court says unless he can claim it supports any of his positions.
That’s ’cause he’s a “Progressive” and can do no wrong.
Like these progressives
A lawless administration in so many ways. If they’re not stripping bondholders of their legal rights (GM takeover), or ignoring a Federal Judges’ ruling on Obamacare ( ref. to todays demand that states still impliment the law), they are busy circumventing congress to impose their own rules on society (carbon taxation, card check, etc., etc., etc.)
Investigations in the HoR need to start immediately.
There is some confusion here for me . . .
Obama Administration Lifts Deepwater Drilling Moratorium -…
FOXNews – Oct 12, 2010
http://www.google.com/search?q=deepwater-drilling+moratorium&hl=en&sa=X&tbs=tl:1,tl_num:20&prmd=ivnsu&ei=-xhLTZHmJIP88AaBy82lDg&ved=0CFMQywEoAg
The “adminstration” is a pretty broad term . . .
Did they get to this part of this yet?
“Before the Obama Administration sweeps under the carpet the controversy over the drilling experts it falsely used to justify its moratorium, the incident bears another look. Not least because it underlines the purely political nature of a drilling ban that now threatens the Gulf Coast economy and drilling safety.
When President Obama last month announced his six-month deepwater moratorium, he pointed to an Interior Department report of new “safety” recommendations. That report prominently noted that the recommendations it contained—including the six-month drilling ban—had been “peer-reviewed” by “experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” It also boasted that Interior “consulted with a wide range” of other experts. The clear implication was that the nation’s drilling brain trust agreed a moratorium was necessary.
As these columns reported last week, the opposite is true. In a scathing document, eight of the “experts” the Administration listed in its report said their names had been “used” to “justify” a “political decision.” The draft they reviewed had not included a six-month drilling moratorium. The Administration added that provision only after it had secured sign-off. In their document, the eight forcefully rejected a moratorium, which they argued could prove more economically devastating than the oil spill itself and “counterproductive” to “safety.””
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704198004575311033371466938.html
Article 2, section 1, paragraph 8 of the Constitution of the United States:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.”
What form of government results when the president ignores his constitutional oath and governs by executive order (fiat) and through extra-constitutional agencies(i.e.,the EPA)?
——————————————————————–
EPA Administrator Won’t Say If She Agrees With Climate Scientist Who Says There’s Been No Global Warming Since 1995
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/epa-administrator-ducks-question-global
———————————————————————-
When viewing administrator Jackson in this video clip, I was reminded of the First Lady’s anti-fat campaign and if the First Lady has discussed the issue with Supreme Court Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, former economic adviser Christina Romer and administrator Jackson.
Jeroen B. says:
February 3, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Wait.
I think someone need to get their heads (and special interest registers) throughly checked/audited.
Allow me an analogy to see if I correctly understand this:
If a house burnt down because people ran through the house with flaming torches , and subsequently, the local authority banned the use of flaming torches indoors, which is then lifted because the flaming torch industry lobbied for it, then reimposed because it’s REALLY NOT SAFE to use flaming torches indoors, the authority is “in contempt” ?
=======================================================
Bad analogy Jeroen
Here it is fixed:
If a house burnt down because people lit a fire in the fireplace to keep warm, because of all this global warming, and subsequently, the local authority banned the use of fireplaces indoors…………………
@latitude:
I have a suspicion that any ‘leaking wells’ in Cuban waters will be less of an environmental disaster than the Deepwater Horizon became, if only because the Cubans realize they have got neither resources nor manpower to combat such a situation and will happily accept foreign aid when it’s offered to them, rather than tying said aid up in (EPA) red tape and union demands.
So before you point fingers, realize that a large part of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was of your country’s own making. I find it stunning to believe that nobody has even bothered to reflect on this, instead people are caterwauling that their precious right to despoil for profit is in mortal danger.
Astounding.
The administration is acting stupidly. When D.C. sells leases, the dollars go to our spending. When oil is produced, the gubment collects 18% royalty. We need the money. Imported oil collects no federal royalty.
We had an oil spill. The 30 dollar increase in crude prices since then is about a 350 billion dollar burden on our economy. Am I the only economist that sees that?
Throughout the U.S.A.’s history [at least from 1803] the judiciary have been the referees between the Legislative and Administrative branches. They interpret the Constitution, and when one of them throws a flag, the game stops until the matter is finally settled, usually in a higher court.
Several federal judges have now thrown flags on Obama’s plays, but the Administration tramples over the law, the Constitution and our justice system. This is very serious. Practically treason, isn’t it?
Jeroen B.,
I’m sure that if you try really hard, you can manage to come up with an even more inane and unrelated analogy.
I have learned through my work in the environmental sector that “regressives” talk about the shades of gray in law and science, but only respect the black and white that supports their position.
This is true to some extent for all political types, but is far more advanced in my opinion with those on the North American left. It may also apply elsewhere, but my experience does not include those places outside of the US and Canada.
It does annoy me. Even more annoying is that the left constantly claims to be tolerant when all the evidence shows otherwise.
And Vinson offered no stay in his judgement against O-care. The citations against this admin are mounting. Coverups by DOJ and DHS already noted. Look for unfunded spending by the EPA during the spring after Fed shutdown is finally over.
Actually it’s not at all like running through a house with flaming torches. It’s more like a bad plumbing contractor dropped a torch and burned down a business under construction. So the local government denies all new business construction. And closes existing businesses because they might burn down..
When this is brought to court. The judge says the reaction is excessive. But the local government say ” up yours” to the court, and continues to deny new business construction. And forces people from the community to travel great distances to buy goods. And enriching other towns, rather than the local community.
The Obama Administration may have used contempt in this court ruling, but for shutting down the internet, it certainly wants to cross its t’s and dot its i’s ahead of time, by skipping judicial review altogether.
Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet “Kill Switch”
A revised version of a bill giving the President power over the internet in an emergency includes new language saying that the federal government’s designation of vital Internet or other computer systems “shall not be subject to judicial review.”
Jeroen B. says:
February 3, 2011 at 1:22 pm
@latitude:
I have a suspicion that any ‘leaking wells’ in Cuban waters will be less of an environmental disaster than the Deepwater Horizon became
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Jeroen, you either mis-read, or mis-interpreted.
Cuba has no intention of maintaining the wells at all.
Cuba is selling the drilling rights to foreign countries. China has bought several and so has Venezuela. Those countries will be responsible for their own wells.
The only points are, we will have no recourse of anything happens. Our laws are stupid to ban us from drilling, in our own waters, but allowing other countries to drill in those exact same waters when we have no control.
..and then they turn around and sell it back to us
Fortune has an excellent article going in depth on the BP spill. Basically it boiled down to cost-cutting, lazyness, and not listening to engineers. BP has had quite a few disasters resulting from process maintenance screw ups as it seems they have no hard a fast proceedures, just kind of wing it when things go wrong.
It’s an old conundrum, business cut costs and play chicken with disasters, government regulates and taxes businesses to death… which result in more cost-cutting… etc…