Landrieu Welcomes New Federal Court Ruling On Moratorium

WASHINGTON – United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement in response to a ruling by Federal Judge Martin Feldman, holding the U.S. Interior Department in civil contempt for failing to comply with his June 2010 injunction against the moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling:

"Judge Feldman's contempt order rightly exposes the Interior Department's defiance of judicial authority by persisting in what amounts to an ongoing moratorium on deepwater drilling that has proved devastating to Louisiana's economy. It's nearly four months since the Interior Department said it lifted the moratorium, and yet not a single new deepwater drilling permit has been issued. Drilling rigs are leaving the Gulf of Mexico for other parts of the world, costing Louisiana and the Gulf Coast thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, fuel prices are skyrocketing and the nation is doing nothing to lessen its dependence on foreign oil at a time of heightened instability in the Middle East. I hope Judge Feldman's ruling serves as a wakeup call to the administration, and the Interior Department will finally get down to business issuing new permits for deepwater oil and gas drilling."

Feldman's June injunction order found the administration used faulty reasoning to impose the moratorium in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He said the government wrongly assumed that because one oil rig spilled oil, other rigs were just as dangerous.

The Interior Department responded by imposing a second moratorium nearly identical to the one Judge Feldman threw out.

Feldman wrote that the department's "dismissive conduct" provides "clear and convincing evidence of the government's contempt.”