Edward Flattau, environmental columnist and author of upcoming book Green Morality, released a new column today about a judge’s recent action that blocked President Obama’s six-month moratorium on offshore drilling. The column can be found at Mr. Flattau’s official website and in various syndicated outlets nationwide, including Huffington Post.
Excerpt:
Judges are not supposed to prevent the government from doing its job, especially when public safety and protection of the environment are at stake.
Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman acknowledged that concept when he cited the well established legal principle that “the court is prohibited from substituting its judgment for that of a government agency.” Yet this very same Judge Feldman decided in favor of several oil-related businesses that brought a suit to block the federal government’s six month moratorium on Gulf of Mexico deep water drilling in the wake of the calamitous BP oil spill. The Judge found that the Obama Administration’s moratorium was “capricious and arbitrary” because of the economic hardship it would inflict. Under the law, a finding of “capricious and arbitrary” gave him the authority to enjoin government action. Clearly, the New Orleans-based Reagan judicial appointee had no affinity for the Precautionary Principle, the “better safe than sorry” approach that is the driving philosophical force behind environmental protection policy.
