Obama administration's absence in moratorium hearing is telling: An editorial

Louisiana officials and business owners told the Senate Small Business Committee this week how deeply the Obama administration's ban on deepwater drilling is affecting the state's economy -- offering a persuasive case against the ill-considered blanket moratorium.

Leslie Bertucci and her husband own a business that leases equipment used on offshore rigs. "We employ 14 people,'' she told the committee. "Those 14 people have families to take care of -- 42 spouses and children to be exact. In addition, we have more than 40 vendors that we order supplies and services from every month.''

She put a face on the figures offered by Louisiana State University business professor Joseph Mason, who also testified. He estimated that the Gulf Coast will lose more than 8,000 jobs, $500 million in wages, $2.1 billion in economic activity and nearly $100 million in state and local tax revenue.

By contrast, not a single person from the Obama administration appeared to defend the moratorium. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who chairs the committee, said that she had asked for Christina Romer, who heads up the President's Council of Economic Advisers, or any other administration official to attend. Sen. David Vitter said that the administration's failure to produce even one witness to offer a rationale for the far-reaching moratorium was "very telling,'' and it is.

States need to ignore the federal government. That moratorium ought to mean nothing. The state should do what it thinks is best. AZ and LA could start a trend. Other states should follow. Just secede by pretending that the feds don't exist.

Long ago (1801) at the naval Battle of Copenhagen, the commanding admiral raised flags indicating that the English ships should withdraw (they were losing). Horatio Nelson, who was not the commanding admiral, was far out in front and saw the signal -- but he raised his telescope to his blind eye and declared "I do not see any signal" and he continued to fight. He won a great victory.

State sovereignty can be re-asserted by ignoring the tyrants in Washington.

Is a drilling moratorium now in effect? Where?

Yes. On May 28, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a “six-month suspension of all pending, current, or approved offshore drilling operations of new deep-water wells – those more than 500 feet deep – in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific regions.” That first nationwide moratorium was, on July 12, superseded by a second order (see following question) that blocks offshore deep-water drilling in the same areas. That second order remains in force until Nov. 30 – unless it is successfully challenged in court or until Mr. Salazar lifts it. The moratorium has halted drilling at 33 deep-water sites in the Gulf of Mexico.

Didn’t a federal judge stop the moratorium?

Yes, but only temporarily. On June 22, US District Court Judge Martin Feldman, responding to an industry lawsuit claiming economic harm, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the first six-month moratorium. He ruled that the moratorium was overbroad as well as “arbitrary and capricious.” On July 8, a government motion to suspend the judge’s injunction failed in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans.

In response, Salazar four days later issued a new order in which the government did not cite water depth to define the type of drilling to be banned but instead banned drilling by certain floating deep-water drill rigs. That new suspension has the same effect as the old moratorium, but may be harder for the oil industry to reverse in court, experts say.

“Judge Feldman essentially provided a road map for the Department of the Interior, and Secretary Salazar’s memorandum follows that road map,” writes Jeffrey Rachlinski, a professor of environmental law at Cornell University Law School in Ithaca, N.Y., in an e-mail interview. “The memo demonstrates that the problems that caused the Deepwater Horizon event are endemic to the industry as a whole, and not specific to BP.”

csmonitor.com

In some ways, Obama is showing how this can be done:

Federal laws against sactuary cities? [shrug] Oh, those laws can be ignored.
State laws against illegal immigration? [shrug] The judge says they can be gutted.

Well, maybe people all across the country should just stop acting like the federal government has power. We the People are sovereign and we are the highest power. The federal government has only the power that we consent to grant to them. States need to stand up.

“Even worse, Sen. Landrieu said Ms. Romer told her the administration does not have economic impact data on the ban but could produce some by September. Taking such a drastic step without data is reckless. It’s also hard to believe that the Obama administration won’t be able to come up with numbers until the moratorium is half over.”

IMPEACH! IT’S TIME! Bambi on TV now acting like Chavez at some urban league speech. It’s all about him..all the time. I can’t stand this clown!

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