Free Republic

Having been enjoined by Judge Feldman (no relation) from trying to halt oil drilling based on inadequate scientific basis, the Administration's Secretary Salazar, tried to pull a fast one by simply issuing another moratorium. Judge Feldman has refused to play along: The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's initial six-month moratorium on deepwater oil-drilling dealt the government another blow on Wednesday. U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman denied the government's request to throw out a suit challenging the drilling halt that had been filed by offshore-oil-service companies. Justice Department lawyers had argued the lawsuit was moot because the...

Some environmental groups want Judge Feldman to step down and vacate his ruling that overturned the drilling moratorium, because he had investments in oil & gas. Agree or disagree? agree

When a New Orleans federal judge enjoined the moratorium on deepwater oil drilling last week, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and most other conservatives cheered. They should have been horrified. It is not the possibility of another environmental disaster that should have offended their sensibilities. Nor is it the fact that Judge Martin Feldman has a stock portfolio that, far from being diverse, is loaded with shares in companies that uniquely benefit from his ruling. Rather, conservatives should have been disgusted that an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan revealed himself as an activist judge. Feldman spurned the judicial restraint that...

A federal judge who overturned a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed after Gulf oil spill refused Thursday to put his ruling on hold while the government The Justice Department had asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman to delay his ruling until the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans can review it. Feldman rejected that request Thursday. On Tuesday, he struck down the Interior Department's moratorium that halted approval of new permits for deepwater projects and suspended drilling on 33 exploratory wells. Feldman concluded the government simply assumed that because one deepwater rig went up in flames,...

Drilling companies and others who won an order from a federal judge Tuesday lifting the Obama Administration's moratorium on deepwater oil drilling are accusing the administration of defying the court's order by announcing plans to reimpose the moratorium.Moratorium opponents filed papers in a New Orleans federal court this afternoon requesting an emergency hearing before Judge Martin Feldman, who entered the order blocking the moratorium. Since that time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated both in a statement and Congressional testimony that he plans to re-impose the moratorium soon based on information that wasn't fully developed when the six-month drilling ban was imposed in late May.From the...

Most lawyers, upon finding themselves on the receiving end of a judicial rebuke as scathing as the one handed down by Judge Martin Feldman in Hornbeck v. Salazar, would be spending the next few days in a dark bar. At the very least, a few sick days would be in order to avoid having to face co-workers until somebody else screws up a big case. Not in this administration. Ken Salazar wasted no time announcing the administration’s plans to appeal Judge Feldman’s well reasoned and easily understood ruling. Salazar would like us to believe that with a little tweaking, he...

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in New Orleans has blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects that was imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill. Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs had asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium. President Barack Obama's administration has halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf. Feldman says in his ruling that the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning for the...