Officials: Feds to issue new drilling moratorium

The Obama administration will issue a new revised moratorium on offshore drilling today, two administration officials told The Associated Press. Both officials requested anonymity so as not to pre-empt the official announcement. Last week, a federal appeals court rejected the government’s effort to restore its initial offshore deepwater drilling moratorium, which halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater projects and suspended drilling on 33 exploratory wells. That moratorium, issued in response to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon disaster begun in April, was rejected last month by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman. “If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are?” Feldman asked. “Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed, and rather overbearing.” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at the time that he would issue a new deepwater drilling moratorium that could be refined to reflect offshore conditions and allow drilling in areas where reserves and risks are known, in contrast to exploratory reservoirs. In its appeal, the Interior Department asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to let the temporary ban stand until it ruled on the merits of the case. Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore rigs argued that the moratorium was arbitrarily imposed following the April 20 explosion, which killed 11 workers and blew out a well 5,000 feet underwater.