Texas Sues Obama Administration Over 'Unjustified' Deepwater Drilling Moratorium

HOUSTON (Associated Press) — The Texas attorney general sued the Obama administration Wednesday over its new deep-water offshore drilling moratorium, claiming it is unjustified and federal officials did not contact the state before issuing the ban.

Attorney General Greg Abbott filed the 18-page suit in federal court in Houston against Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The ban halted the approval of any new permits for deep-water projects and shut down drilling at 33 exploratory ocean wells in the wake of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In his lawsuit, Abbott called the ban "an unjustified, arbitrary and capricious policy that will inflict harm upon coastal communities."

Also, the suit said, federal officials did not coordinate with the state or consider the economic impacts before issuing the moratorium. Texas is one of the nation's most active oil refinery states. State figures show there were 86,900 jobs in oil and natural gas extraction in April and an additional 107,800 in support industries.

Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff defended the ban but declined to comment specifically on the Texas lawsuit.

"The Deepwater Horizon/BP oil disaster has made it clear that we need better health, safety and environmental standards for drilling operations," Barkoff said in an e-mailed statement. "The temporary pause on deep-water drilling that Secretary Salazar has put in place is simply common sense, and we continue to stand behind it."

The current moratorium replaced one that was blocked by the courts. The Interior Department says it's meant to give to give oil and gas companies time to implement adequate safety measures. The ban is in effect until Nov. 30, unless federal officials determine deep-water drilling operations have gotten safer.

Also Wednesday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge who overturned the initial moratorium to throw out that court challenge filed by several offshore service companies, arguing that it is moot now that the new ban is in place.

Company lawyers, however, claim the second moratorium is a "carbon copy" of the first and is a sham designed to circumvent U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman's earlier order by prolonging the court challenge.

The new ban does not seem to deviate much from the original moratorium in that it still targets deep-water drilling operators while defining them in a different way.

ESNCO Offshore Co. has filed a separate lawsuit challenging the new moratorium. Feldman also is presiding over that case.

Meanwhile, the Interior Department is hosting eight forums – including a Houston session in September – to gather information from experts and federal, state and local leaders about drilling safety reform, well containment and oil spill response. With that information, officials plan to consider whether to continue, end, reduce or expand the moratorium.

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Associated Press Writer Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report.

Comments

[Ashley Verge]

01:23 PM on 08/20/2010

I think there was a hidden agenda to this whole devastation to make Obama look bad in his first year of Presidency. The lengths that old school, closed minded southerns will do to benefit themselves is unbelievable.

[Dean Robichaux]

12:33 AM on 08/19/2010

I have a plan. This Obama economy is in the crapper. A solution would be to heed the plan of T. Boone Pickens. This country is sitting on a bubble of natural gas bigger than the oilfields of the Middle East. Cars and trucks can be converted to burn natural gas as fuel. This accomplishes several things all positive. 1st for all you environmentalists,natural gas is clean burning unlike coal and oil. 2nd,our trade deficit is ridiculous with the vast majority being energy. We replace with gas, a natural resource therefore keeping money here in the U.S. instead of sending to foreign countries that hate us. 3rd,this would eliminate coal mining but replace that industry and jobs with clean burning natural gas. 4th,this would create MILLIONS of jobs domestically( just ask Pennsylvania what its doing for the economy.ALL POSITIVE!!! Oh,I know whats coming next,the enviro';s will be screaming about fraccing fluids in drilling operations contaminating the water table. I know most of the screaming will be because you watched the hit job documentary"Gasland" on HBO. Don't believe it.Most of it has been debunked. I know for a fact there is a new technology being introduced in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania that drastically improves cementing jobs during drilling operations that will isolate the fraccing zone eliminating the chance of frac fluid migrating up the hole to the water table. That is a gold plated plan for the country that needs to be implemented NOW!!!

[Judson Parker]

01:50 PM on 08/14/2010

It only shut down 25, not 33. 8 of them are production wells that are exempt from the moratorium.

[Dean Robichaux]

01:35 AM on 08/19/2010

Wrong Judson. Those are 33 'drilling" rigs employing and being supported offshore and on land by multitudes of people. All are under the moratorium. You do not need a drilling rig for producing wells.

[Carlos Manuel]

09:02 AM on 08/14/2010

The oild companies must have shut off the "contributions"

[dtlewis]

01:50 PM on 08/13/2010

TX has always considered itself somehow superior to the rest of the union so let them secede and take care of their own. Aside from the oil industry the jobs they claim to be creating provide subsistence level wages with no benefits anyway so what's the point of pandering to them anyway?

[peter richard]

02:52 PM on 08/13/2010

Aside from the oil industry the jobs they claim to be creating provide subsistence level wages with no benefits anyway so what's the point of pandering to them anyway? -----That is not true at all.What about all the jobs at NASA? Oh yea Obama killed them. What about the plant in sealy that makes Humvees for the military ? Oh yea Obama killed that. What about the windmill farms in Texas from the stimulus money created 200 American jobs and 2000 chinese jobs? By the way I make the same money and benefits in Texas that I made in Massachusetts.Without all the taxes and the cost of living is 3 times cheaper. Skilled labor is in great demand in Texas.

[amiredorblue]

05:48 PM on 08/14/2010

Some much Texas hating on huff post. From a business perspective, Texas is superior. Texas has it share of problems like all states do. And yes Texas is a very proud state. Do some research before you make your hateful comments.

Texas, #1 State for Businesses

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37516043

[peter richard]

12:47 PM on 08/13/2010

After we have drilled close to 40,000 wells in the gulf we need to stop now to see if its safe? This is just one more way for Obama to hold us hostage to get his agenda passed (Cap & Tax). Just like he will not secure the border completely until he gets his voter base amnesty.

[Shan Wells]

06:02 PM on 08/13/2010

Peter, listen to me. Yes, we do need to stop the drilling until we can be sure it is safe. The ratio is not the point. If you had 40,000 nuclear bombs built next to your house, and one went off, would you be pointing out the ratio? There is no margin for error here. The damage is too great.

This spill has devastated the costal communities, drilling and fishing industries alike. It's only common sense to make sure it does not happen again.

If you want to blame someone, start with Dick Cheney, who gutted the regulations governing offshore drilling, and the extractive industry, who couldn't even be bothered to modify their saftey regs for the gulf from the Arctic. This all could have been prevented with a little less greed and a whole lot more care.

Thinking with our wallets instead of our heads is what caused this entire mess in the first place.

[BikeFreak]

11:15 AM on 08/13/2010

I want to give Texas to Mexico.

Who do I sue to get that done?

[peter richard]

12:49 PM on 08/13/2010

Yea lets give away the state that is creating jobs and keep Califonia. Not!!

[Soulsurfer]

09:29 AM on 08/13/2010

The State of Texas does not own the Gulf of Mexico. Fact: We just had the worst oil spill in the history of this country by a company that was ignoring the laws and had no plan or equipment in place in the event of an accident. How is it wrong to stop all activity of this type until we can determine if the other companies doing the same thing have their gear in order? This is a TEMPORARY stoppage. It's the smart thing to do...........oh, yeah, we're talking about Texas, and oil companies.

[getoffmedz]

12:07 AM on 08/13/2010

Texas is a fossil fuel dominated fiefdom which just happens to within the U.S.A.

[prettyinpink]

10:43 PM on 08/12/2010

There was a broad-based failure on the part of the media, the science establishment, and the federal bureaucracy. With the nation and its leaders looking for facts, we got instead a massive plume of apocalyptic mythology and threats of Armageddon. In the Gulf, this misinformation has cost jobs, lowered property values, and devastated tourism, and its effects on national policy could be deep and far-reaching.

http://article.nationalreview.com/439062/our-real-gulf-disaster/lou-dolinar?page=1

To get an idea of the scale of misinformation involved, consider how many of the most widely reported narratives about the spill — ones that have woven their way into the national consciousness — have turned out to be dubious

[getoffmedz]

12:08 AM on 08/13/2010

You may be insane.

Have it checked out?

[prettyinpink]

12:23 AM on 08/13/2010

Typical leftist whine.

Attack the poster-never refute facts or present a rational argument.

[BikeFreak]

11:16 AM on 08/13/2010

Are you high?

[bmike]

09:54 PM on 08/12/2010

Oil boys you just had the freaking country freaked out wondering if we are going to lose the Gulf of Mexico to oil.It looks like a freak accident but those do happen.How do you keep the oil from getting in the water.That's where we get our fish from.

[research]

09:28 PM on 08/12/2010

just require that any rigs that want to do deep drilling have ALL the suggested backups.

Require the very best known tech, not the slipshod junk they use now.

[LarBear]

08:35 PM on 08/12/2010

WOW! How did Perry/ Abbott ever let the Feds get away with interfering with Toyota??? It's NOT like vehicles going to full throttle were a danger....

[freeus]

08:20 PM on 08/12/2010

Its like the town next to Chernobyl suing FOR a nuclear plant; Rick Perry is a fool.

[Gaylord P Farqua]

08:10 PM on 08/12/2010

Don't they have enough work to do re-writing the school books?

[amiredorblue]

05:52 PM on 08/14/2010

Get your facts straight.

http://www.juststatethefacts.com/