District Court Judge Martin Feldman, a Reagan appointee, pointedly rebuked the administration in his verdict, and found that the science didn't justify the damage to the oil economy:
After reviewing the Secretary’s Report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium. The Report, invoked by the Secretary, describes the offshore oil industry in the Gulf and offers many compelling recommendations to improve safety. But it offers no time line for implementation, though many of the proposed changes are represented to be implemented immediately. The Report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium. It is incident- specific and driven: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others. While the Report notes the increase in deepwater drilling over the past ten years and the increased safety risk associated with deepwater drilling, the parameters of “deepwater” remain confused. And drilling elsewhere simply seems driven by political or social agendas on all sides. The Report seems to define “deepwater” as drilling beyond a depth of 1000 feet by referencing the increased difficulty of drilling beyond this depth; similarly, the shallowest depth referenced in the maps and facts included in the Report is “less than 1000 feet.” But while there is no mention of the 500 feet depth anywhere in the Report itself, the Notice to Lessees suddenly defines “deepwater” as more than 500 feet.
The conclusion:
This Court is persuaded that the public interest weighs in favor of granting a preliminary injunction. While a suspension of activities directed after a rational interpretation of the evidence could outweigh the impact on the plaintiffs and the public, here, the Court has found the plaintiffs would likely succeed in showing that the agency’s decision was arbitrary and capricious. An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0610/Judges_rebuke_on_drilling_freeze.html?showallVerdict:
http://www.laed.uscourts.gov/GENERAL/Notices/10-1663_doc67.pdf
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