US government plans new drilling moratorium after court defeat

Jun 23, 2010, 10:44 GMT

Washington - The US government will issue a new order establishing a moratorium on offshore oil drilling, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced late Tuesday - hours after a US judge lifted a previous drilling ban.

President Barack Obama had put in place the initial moratorium in response to the ongoing BP Plc spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

'We see clear evidence every day, as oil spills from BP's well, of the need for a pause on deepwater drilling,' Salazar said in a statement. 'The decision to impose a moratorium on deepwater drilling was and is the right decision.'

He said the new order, which he plans to issue within days, would set aside 'any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate and within our authorities.'

The Department of Justice will also be separately appealing the court ruling, he noted. The Sierra Club environmental group has said that it would also join the White House in an appeal.

Earlier Tuesday, Judge Martin Feldman of the US District Court in New Orleans had granted a preliminary injunction against the moratorium, finding it overly broad and insufficiently justified.

The moratorium, extended in May for six months, covered new deepwater offshore drilling and halted permits and active exploration of drilling opportunities off coastlines in Alaska and Virginia and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hornbeck Offshore Services and other Louisiana-based oil services companies, which provide ships and other services to oil companies, had argued in court Monday that the moratorium on drilling oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico would irreparably harm their businesses.

   Feldman said in his ruling that the administration's review of drilling did not sufficiently prove a need for such a broad moratorium, did not provide a timeline for implementing changes to safety aboard drilling rigs, and did not sufficiently clarify what constituted deepwater drilling.

   '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 like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy-handed, and rather overbearing,' he wrote.

Feldman also said the companies involved in the suit had shown they were likely to suffer irreparable harm from the drilling ban.