Friday, June 25, 2010

Drill Baby Drill! Echoes Despite A Profoundly Ravaged Ecosystem

Thirty-seven of the 64 judges - in Gulf Coast districts, where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending - have financial connections to big oil.  This, of course, complicates matters immensely, because federal judicial rules require judges to disqualify themselves from hearing cases involving a company in which they have a direct financial interest., which brings us to Federal Judge Martin Feldman, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

On Tuesday, Judge Feldman blocked the temporary moratorium on new offshore exploration and deepwater drilling that the Obama administration imposed last month.  However, this judge, according to the most recent financial disclosure form, had holdings of up to $15,000 in Transocean in 2008 and recently owned stock in Halliburton, Prospect Energy, Hercules Offshore, Parker Drilling Co., and ATP Oil Gas. A financial conflict of interest? Possibly. As of today, most of his recent financial disclosures are not yet available.

Regardless, rather than express humility in the face of forces not fully understood, in the midst of the biggest environmental disaster in US history, this judge, the corporate elite and government officials have chosen to proceed with the same hubris and arrogance that left the earth with a gaping, gushing hole that no one knows how to repair and countless individuals with nowhere to turn.

1 comments:

Anonymous,  13:44  

That judge should be tarred and feathered. Judicial power must be curbed. No man should have that much power.

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