President Obama’s environmental bureau crats have earned yet another spanking from the federal judiciary over their “de termined disregard” of the rule of law.
Federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana excoriated the Obama Interior Department on Wednesday for defying his May 2010 order to lift its groundless ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Nine months later, not a single permit has been issued. Several deepwater platforms have moved out of the area to take their businesses — and an estimated 5,000 jobs — overseas. Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue and Gulf lease sales-related rent have also dried up.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar thumbed his nose at the judge’s preliminary injunction last June and dragged his feet into July, when his bureaucracy lost its bid for a stay from the US Court of Appeals. Salazar then concocted a second “revised” moratorium to replace the one Feldman had nullified as “arbitrary and capricious, and therefore, unlawful.” The second deepwater-drilling ban was “lifted” in October, but still no permits were issued.
Every step of the way, the White House team has displayed defiance — by broadcasting its intent and determination to impose the blanket moratorium in spite of the judicial order, and by ramming through a second sweeping ban that did nothing to address the court’s concerns after the injunction was issued.
The Interior Department’s contempt for the law is outweighed only by its contempt for sound science.
Remember: Salazar falsely claimed that the administration’s blanket-moratorium report was endorsed and peer-reviewed by seven scientific experts — when, in fact, eight of the scientists studying the issue for the government explicitly said they “do not agree with the six-month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling.
Remember: The Interior Department inspector general publicized e-mails in November showing that Salazar’s office and former environmental czar Carol Browner’s office collaborated on the false rewrite of the White House offshore-drilling-ban report.
While the inspector general found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing and the White House denied any attempt to mislead the public, Feldman pointed out that “at the hearing on the first moratorium, in response to a question by the court, the government’s answer then was wholly at odds with the story of the misleading text change by a White House official, a story the government does not now dispute.”
Jim Adams, president and CEO of the Offshore Marine Service Association, noted the massive gap between Obama’s words and actions this week: “Thousands of workers are out of jobs, Americans are paying more for gasoline and heating oil, and our nation is becoming even more dependent on unstable nations for our energy needs. . . . Americans want an end to this manmade disaster.”
Adding insult to economic injury, Salazar this week unveiled new “scientific integrity rules” to “end political manipulation of science” and “encourage an environment of rigorous open discussion.”
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