Who you calling "cowboy?!?!"
Posted on 06/23/2010 5:54:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter. Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won't do.
In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans-based Feldman overturned the administration's radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling -- and he singled out Salazar's central role in jury-rigging a federal panel's scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar's head would roll. In Obama's world, he gets immunity.
The suit challenging Obama's desperately political ban was filed by Covington, La., rig company Hornbeck Offshore Services, which spoke on behalf of all the "small people" in the industry whose economic survival is at stake. As the plaintiffs' lawyer argued in court, the overbroad ban promised to be more devastating to Gulf workers than the spill itself. "This is an unprecedented industry-wide shutdown. Never before has the government done this," attorney Carl Rosenblum said.
Scientists who served on the committee expressed outrage upon discovering earlier this month that Salazar had -- unilaterally and without warning -- inserted a blanket drilling ban recommendation into their report. As Feldman recounted in his ruling:
In the Executive Summary to the Report, (Salazar) recommends "a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs." He also recommends "an immediate halt to drilling operations on the 33 permitted wells, not including relief wells currently being drilled by BP, that are currently being drilled using floating rigs in the Gulf of Mexico."
Much to the government's discomfort and this Court's uneasiness, the Summary also states that "the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a "misrepresentation." It was factually incorrect.
Allow me to be more injudicious: Salazar lied. Salazar committed fraud. Salazar sullied the reputations of the experts involved and abused his authority.
And for what purpose? To exploit the Gulf crisis, appease the eco-extremists and stymie the economic recovery to which the Obama White House pays oily lip service.
The scientists whose views were misrepresented reportedly received an apology from the evidence-doctoring Salazar, but where are the consequences? Where is the accountability? Terrific news: Salazar, the report-rigger, is in charge of overseeing it. That's right. The Teflon Interior Secretary spent Monday afternoon swearing in another bureaucrat, litigator Michael Bromwich, who will head the newly named "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement" (formerly the beleaguered Minerals Management Service).
According to Salazar, Bromwich "will be a key part of our team as we continue to change the way the Department of the Interior does business." Present company exempted, of course.
Feldman soberly illuminated the way the Department of Interior does business in concluding that Salazar's "invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country." Salazar, with his boss's blessing, imposed the blanket moratorium on Hornbeck and 33 permitted rigs without a shred of threat/safety analysis. Of course, Hope and Change have always been exercised with Arbitrary and Capricious power.
The White House immediately announced plans to appeal the ruling. But for once, Chicago-on-the-Potomac has run smack into the rule of law and lost. For all the other small people over whom the Obama administration has run roughshod, let’s hope it sets a lasting precedent.
Don’t overlook how pResident Zero’s new commission on drilling is going to play into this picture...the group is made up entirely of individuals opposed to oil.’
Actually I say go for it, put the zero on AF1, take it to 10000 feet and then cut in the windmill for power.
And THAT is the real story. Outright forgery, adding information to a signed document in my business would bring immediate firing and possible jail time. Salazar should be canned, no question about it.
HAHAHAHA..Let him ride in a glider. He doesn’t need AF-1
Hope the kick made his stupid cowboy had fall off.
..hey Salazar, come over here and take the heat on this...your not doing anything else but taking up office space when your around...after all, Odumbo needs to brush up on his gulf game. Just stand there and look stupid and incompetent like most around here, it’ll die down after a week, and you can resign and get millions for being the fall guy..pretty cool eh?
Cowboy Hat (not had). Too much coffee, I fear.
Amen Michelle. May this precedent be the first of many court rulings to come to overturn more of marxist's unconstitutional policies.
Who you calling "cowboy?!?!"
Yeah. He owns up to $50,000 in oil company stock..
The man is just ‘swimming’ in oil money!! /s
My question is “where are the Republicans?” Why isn’t Steele out there running ads or getting face time on tv pointing out the absurdity of this? Where are the R congresscritters? WTH is wrong with all of them?
Salazar has hands so dirty that it’ll take an entire bar of Lava to get ‘em clean, but by all means let’s sully the Judge.
I’d love to find out the judge sold his Transocean stock in 2009.
And why exactly is he Not in JAIL FOR CONTEMPT as well as the lawyers that put forth FALSE EVIDENCE before the court???
I’m an oil man, too. I bought $60 in gasoline yesterday exclusively from ExxonMobil, the people responsible back int he Valdez disaster. I therefore must recuse myself from driving to municipal court to pay my speeding ticket in same.
Yeah I know how they do it, guilt by tangental contact. Frankly, they could say every company has an indirect association with oil drilling as the employees get to work in cars that are powered by gasoline derived from oil which comes from oil wells some of which are in the GOM.
If the judge owned BP stock, it looks as if he wasn't an "insider" - he didn't get any memo to dump it.
BP Disaster Started in February
BP Chief Sold Stocks Shortly Before Oil Rig Explosion, Goldman Sachs Sold Shares
I just KNEW you were in bed with the oil companies!!!
:0)
You realize the Republicans are in the minority and can do nothing until we they get it back. Are you going to help in November, or are you just going to sit on your behind and bitch?
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