Obama administration blocked efforts to stop BP oil drilling before explosion

[yunghustlaz]

In 2009, the Obama administration intervened to support the reversal of a court order that would have halted offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has long had close ties to the industry, specifically cited BP’s Deepwater Horizon operation as one that should be allowed to go forward, according to a

Comments

[awfulbliss]

You don't find anything troubling about the court telling the Administration that drilling could continue on the condition of a study being conducted and then allowing the drilling to continue without actually finishing it? It appears that's what happened if I have my facts straight.

[yunghustlaz]

Of course the study would have to be completed before drilling resumed, that's what an injunction is.

S: (n) injunction, enjoining, enjoinment, cease and desist order ((law) a judicial remedy issued in order to prohibit a party from doing or continuing to do a certain activity) "injunction were formerly obtained by writ but now by a judicial order"

[yunghustlaz]

A court order said there needed to be further study done, and the administration both willfully resisted and worked with an oil lobby to try and reverse the injunction. There's not really a lot to rationalize here. The Obama administration worked for them to get rid of the exemption for them to undergo studies that would reasonably show -- hey, these drilling methods are dangerous (albiet highly profitable) and then hey turned out to be.. well, dangerous, albiet highly profitable. Except for that oil spill part.