Salazar pledges new order to bolster deepwater drilling ban

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday said he will soon issue a new order that freezes deepwater oil-and-gas drilling in response to a federal judge’s decision to block the existing ban.

A federal judge on Tuesday issued an injunction against the six-month deepwater drilling ban that Salazar imposed in late May in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Salazar, in a prepared statement, said he would “issue a new order in the coming days that eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities.”

The Justice Department is also appealing the ruling Tuesday by Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Feldman ruled that an Interior report on offshore safety — conducted in response to the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that touched off the Gulf spill — failed to justify the decision to stop issuing new deepwater drilling permits and halt work at 33 existing projects. 

“After reviewing the [Interior] 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 ruling states.

Several companies that provide support services to offshore rigs have sued to overturn the moratorium.

But Salazar, in his statement Tuesday evening, said imposing the moratorium “was and is the right decision.”

“We see clear evidence every day, as oil spills from BP's well, of the need for a pause on deepwater drilling. That evidence mounts as BP continues to be unable to stop its blowout, notwithstanding the huge efforts and help from the federal scientific team and most major oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.

“The evidence also continues to mount that industry needs to raise the bar on blowout prevention, containment, and response planning before deepwater drilling should continue,” Salazar added.