Surprise, Surprise

The NYT is reporting this afternoon that a Judge has blocked the Obama administration's 6-month moratorium on further drilling below 500 feet depth in the GOM (that strikes me as an extremely fitting initialism for the Gulf right now).

In a 22-page ruling, Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a May 28 order halting all floating offshore drilling projects in more than 500 feet of water and preventing the government from issuing new permits for such projects.

Citing the economic harm to businesses and workers in the gulf caused by the moratorium, Judge Feldman — a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan — wrote that the Obama administration had failed to justify the need for the sweeping suspension, which he characterized as “generic, indeed punitive.”

To which the administration responded,

Mr. Gibbs said the president “strongly believes that continuing to drill at those depths without knowing what’s happened” in the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and left a well gushing out of control, “makes no sense” and puts people’s lives at risk.

I think that's about right: we don't know exactly what happened, and in fact we may never be able to determine the precise circumstances and chain of events that led to the blowout. But we can probably get a better understanding than we have now, and it's already clear that a lack of oversight on the part of MMS was a contributing factor. We cannot hope for a set of regulations that can guarantee accident-free oil drilling. However, it seems to me that there are a few that wouldn't be too economically restrictive, but would lead to a safer drilling environment. The purpose of the moratorium is not to be "punitive," but to allow our leaders to carefully examine the situation and figure out how to proceed from here.

The status quo has been tested and found lacking. Apparently, Feldman has a hard time seeing that. I wonder what could be impairing his vision? Hmmm... that's a toughie. Think Progress offers a suggestion:

Like many judges presiding in the Gulf region, Feldman owns lots of energy stocks, including Transocean, Halliburton, and two of BP’s largest U.S. private shareholders — BlackRock (7.1%) and JP Morgan Chase (28.3%). Here’s a list of Feldman’s income in 2008 (amounts listed unless under $1,000):

BlackRock ($12000- $36000)
Ocean Energy ($1000 – $2500)
NGP Capital Resources ($1000 – $2500)
Quicksilver Resources ($5000 – $15000)
Hercules Offshore ($6000 – $17500)
Provident Energy
Peabody Energy
PenGrowth Energy
RPC Inc
Atlas Energy Resources
Parker Drilling
TXCO Resources
EV Energy Partners
Rowan Companies
BPZ Resources
El Paso Corp
KBR Inc
Chesapeake Energy
ATP Oil & Gas

Shorter version: Federal Judge blocks Obama moratorium; cites danger of economic impact to his bank account.