US District Court Judge Martin Feldman has struck down President Obama's moratorium on offshore oil drilling. Ouch:
After enjoying a brief reprieve from the barrage of criticism over his response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama was dealt a significant blow Tuesday that may refresh perceptions that his administration’s handling of the crisis has been improvised and haphazard.
A federal judge in New Orleans blocked Obama’s six-month moratorium on new deep-water offshore oil drilling and mocked the decision to impose it as sloppy and illogical.
Of course, the Obama attack machine is going after Feldman with everything they've got. His life will be destroyed and Ken Salazar will seek to re-impose the ban, but this is still quite a slap in the face to a president who does whatever he damn well pleases.
The money quote from the decision:
“The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium,” Feldman wrote. “If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers [are] like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed and rather overbearing.”
