A federal judge has denied the Obama administration's request to stay his ruling lifting a moratorium on offshore drilling moratorium until an appeals court could review the case.
In an emergency hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman denied the government's motion to stay pending appeal "for the same reasons given in [the] Court's June 22, 2010 order granting the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction."
No doubt the judge took into consideration The White House's deliberate misrepresentation of experts recommendations from his previous ruling to overturn the Obama White House moratorium which banned drilling for 6 months.
Much to the government’s discomfort and this Court’s uneasiness, the Summary also states that “the recommendations contained in this report have been peer-reviewed by seven experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering.” As the plaintiffs, and the experts themselves, pointedly observe, this statement was misleading. The experts charge it was a “misrepresentation.” It was factually incorrect. Although the experts agreed with the safety recommendations contained in the body of the main Report, five of the National Academy experts and three of the other experts have publicly stated that they “do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium” on floating drilling. They envisioned a more limited kind of moratorium, but a blanket moratorium was added after their final review, they complain, and was never agreed to by them. A factor that might cause some apprehension about the probity of the process that led to the Report.
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