Is Louisiana Saved? Official Ruling Overturning Offshore Drilling Ban Full Text (Other Links To Come)

Note this is an preliminary injunction which I will take.

Thank GOD!! Here is the ruling. More links to come!!

Well this is true:

After reviewing the Secretary’s Report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the
immense scope of the moratorium. The Report, invoked by the Secretary, describes the offshore oil industry in the Gulf and offers many compelling recommendations to improve safety.

But it offers no time line for implementation, though many of the proposed changes are represented to be implemented immediately. The Report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three
permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium.

It is incidents specific and driven: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others.

While the Report notes the increase in deepwater drilling over the past ten years and the increased safety risk associated with deepwater drilling, the parameters of “deepwater” remain confused. And drilling elsewhere simply seems driven by political or social agendas on all sides.

OUCH look at this footnote:

If the MMS and the Department truly were incompetent
and corrupt, as the intervenors insist, the Court fails to see how
this conclusion supports the government’s position. Indeed, while
the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts
disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they
do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the
misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that
all the experts agree with the Secretary’s recommendation. The
government’s hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common
sense, and the text at issue.

Double ouch- The question here does the Govt have to do this? I am not sure:

Word is that the government will appeal. Doing so would put the case in the U.S. Fifth Circuit, widely regarded as the most conservative and pro-business of the nation’s appellate courts. The chances of the Obama administration winning in the 5th, which like Feldman’s court is based in New Orleans, aren’t great.
Furthermore, as the Times-Picayune noted last night in quoting Loyola Law professor Blaine LeCesne, appealing is an expensive proposition.
But LeCesne noted that if the government wants to stay any preliminary injunction, it could be required to post a bond equivalent to the damage faced by the affected parties, such as Hornbeck. “It could be billions,” LeCesne said. “It could be cost-prohibitive to appeal.”
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