Update, 3/17/11, "U.S. approves first floating deepwater storage in Gulf," Reuters
- For Petrobras the Brazilian oil company to whom Obama says he'll shortly give drilling rights in the US Gulf. He said he's too short-staffed to speed up American drilling permits (see below, 3/10 article). Foreign drillers go to the head of the line.
"A federal appeals court has blocked a judge's order requiring regulators to act
- on several drilling permit applications.
The federal government filed court documents earlier this month saying it may have to deny the applications
- if regulators must make a decision within 30 days as ordered.
The order was issued by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who overturned the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling. ...
Feldman ruled last month that the government must act on five applications within 30 days. He later said his ruling also applies to two other permits.
- But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Tuesday, blocking Feldman's ruling
- pending the outcome of the government's appeal....
The first deepwater permit since the oil spill for activity that was previously suspended was issued Feb. 28. A second one was issued just recently. Neither of those two permits was among the seven covered by Feldman's ruling,
- according to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement."...
- Obama doesn't have enough staff:
"As of Feb. 25, the (US Interior) agency had 270 shallow-water permits and 52 deep-water permits awaiting regulatory approval, the government lawyers said.
- The office has just six drilling engineers to process all permit applications pending in the Gulf of Mexico, they said.
“The court’s orders have created a situation in which these applications must take a back seat’’ to the seven permits singled out for rapid decisions by Feldman"...
------------------------------------------------Regarding the 'first permit' issued in previous week: "The permit, issued to Noble Energy for a well partially owned by BP,
- was not one of those that Feldman’s ruling addressed."...
"The Obama administration late Friday appealed a judge's orders directing the Interior Department to act
- on several Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permits."...
Obama Interior head Salazar says Interior Department needs more taxpayer money if it wants faster permits, that if he doesn't get more taxpayer money things may never get back to what they were:
3/2/11, "US Interior to Act on Permits by March Deadline," RigZone, Dow Jones News
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Despite media declaring the ban over, Obama "has yet to grant any permits to drill new oil or natural-gas wells at depths greater than 500 feet."... New report says BP blast was human error, not the fault of technology....
2/18/11, "Court Orders U.S. to Decide on Drilling," Wall St. Journal, Power and Gold
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