Despite Obama’s moratorium on May 14th issuing the immediate halt of drilling new wells and granting of environmental waivers, grants for drilling permits and environmental waivers have continued to be permitted by the federal government, met with skepticism and complaints that the terms of the moratorium are too narrowly defined and have been violated.
Obama created the green cleaning moratorium in order to close “the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews,” he said. He also commented that after investigation of certain oil company permits it was found that there was no concrete safety measures implemented, only the word of the oil company. Obama vowed these practices would end, but different federal agencies are having issues following these orders.
“The moratorium does not even cover the dangerous drilling that caused the problem in the first place,” said Daniel J. Rohlf, a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, adding he was not certain that the Interior Department was capable of carrying out the needed reforms.
Since the April 20th explosion of the BP oil rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits for the same kind of work the Deepwater Horizon drill, working for BP, was doing. These will have a significant change on green living initiatives and negatively affect the already almost destroyed Gulf.
Government officials in the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service are hiding behind the skirts of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, stating the moratorium was never meant to completely cease permits for new work on existing drill projects, it was simply meant to stop permits for new drills. Salazar also stated the hardships his agency are going through, harping on his requirement of having to process drilling requests within 30 days of their submission.
Even though officials keep claiming the moratorium requirements to still be intact, the main purpose of the moratorium was to prevent accidents occurring due to lack of safety precautions. However, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said there are existing drilling types that have been OKed to continue even though they are as hazardous as new drilling would be. On record there have been at least three major oil rig accidents involving procedures that are still being permitted.
