NEW ORLEANS (CN) - A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the federal government's 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico - a decision the Obama administration immediately said it would appeal. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction against the May 28 moratorium on offshore drilling in more than 500 feet of water, which also halted the granting of new permits for such drilling. Judge Feldman ruled that the administration had failed to show the need for the "blanket moratorium," which he described as "punitive."
Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Reagan, found that the government had presented no factual basis to show "that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration would appeal Feldman's order to the 5th Circuit.
"The president strongly believes, as the Department of Interior and Department of Justice argued yesterday, that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense," Gibbs said. He said that more drilling "puts the safety of those involved, potentially puts safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment and the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now."
Oil-service businesses claimed the moratorium would unjustifiably punish the Gulf Coast's already battered economy. But with the appeal certain, National Public Radio reported that some local businesses said that the uncertainty of the 5th Circuit's decision might make them hold off rehiring workers they had laid off.
Judge Feldman heard arguments in the case on Monday, as scientists whose expertise inadvertently contributed to the ban met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to try to persuade him to soften the ban. The scientists say the government misrepresented their views on the moratorium, which they say "will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill."
The scientists complained that after they consulted with Salazar for a drilling safety report, Salazar falsely implied they favored the 6-month moratorium.
Salazar's May 27 report to President Barack Obama claimed that a panel of seven experts peer-reviewed his recommendations for the drilling moratorium in waters deeper than 500 feet. But the scientists told the Times-Picayune that they reviewed an early version of Salazar's report, which suggested a 6-month moratorium only on new drilling, and only in waters deeper than 1,000 feet.
The scientists say they told Salazar the moratorium on all drilling went too far.
The Times-Picayune reported that the Department of the Interior said later it did not mean to imply that the experts favored the moratorium, but that Salazar stands firm in his decision to stop drilling so long as there's uncertainty about how another spill might be contained.
Neither the federal government nor BP has had much success containing the spill, which recent estimates place at 2.5 million gallons a day.