Federal judge over turns drilling moratorium

The judge has agreed with the oil-related businesses who filed the injunction that the ban would cause irreparable harm to the economy. 

The federal judge who presided over a challenge to the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling simultaneously owned stock in an oil company affected by the ban, according to a financial disclosure statement released Friday.

U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman sold the stock in Exxon Mobil 14 days after the case was filed in New Orleans by a group of oil service firms — and less than five hours before he struck down the moratorium.

U.S. law requires judges to withdraw from any lawsuit in which they have a direct financial interest, however small. Rules also forbid them from hearing cases in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned or in which their financial interests would likely be substantially affected.



The judicial canons require that judges be aware of their investments. Judicial ethicists said that, had he been aware of his holdings, Feldman should have disclosed the ownership or recused himself at the case’s outset if he thought it posed a conflict or raised questions about his impartiality. The court docket indicates that Feldman signed several orders before the sale.


“I’ve never heard of a situation like this,” said Jeffrey M. Shaman, a judicial ethics specialist and law professor at DePaul University.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar vowed to appeal Judge Feldman's decision. 

The White House is standing by its decision, asserting that it makes perfect sense to halt new drilling until the reasons why the BP well failed (and is still failing to the tune of up to 100,000 barrels per day) and to not do so would, in fact, be a clear and present danger to the environmentally devastated Gulf of Mexico.

Judge Feldman noted that the ban "will clearly ripple throughout the economy in this region."

This decision makes absolutely no sense, even if you only consider the economic devastation caused by the Deepwater disaster. The only way to truly protect the economy of the region is to ensure that this type of disaster will not occur again.