Judge Rules Against Obama Administration on Off-Shore Oil Drilling…Again
FoxNews.com
by Kelly Chernenkoff | February 17, 2011
While President Obama’s focus of late has settled on clean energy, his past actions on off-shore oil drilling continue to be debated in both legal and political circles.
The latest snag came when a federal judge ruled that the administration has to decide within thirty days whether or not it will grant five deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled “the government is under a duty to act by either granting or denying a permit application within a reasonable time. Not acting at all is not a lawful option,” he said.
After the infamous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama administration took an on-again, off-again approach to drilling and has put new off-shore drilling permits on hold due to increased scrutiny over safety. The government’s approval process typically takes weeks, but it has amounted to months of waiting for the five applicants in the Louisiana case.
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