06/23/2010 // West Palm Beach, FL, USA // Tara Monks // Tara Monks
New Orleans, LA – The judge who overturned the Obama Administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling reported owning stock in multiple companies involved in the offshore drilling industry, including Transocean and Haliburton, although his shares of Haliburton were sold in the 2008 fiscal year. The information can be found in Martin Feldman’s Financial Disclosure Report that is provided on www.judicialwatch.org.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman of New Orleans reported stock holdings in at least nine companies in the oil and gas industry. While not all companies include offshore drilling as a means of energy production, Hercules Offshore, which Feldman reported holding shares in, claims to operate 25 offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The firm’s website boasts that they own “the largest shallow-water jackup rig drilling fleet in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the fourth largest nationwide,” and that the rigs can “drill to maximum water depths ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 feet.”
Other companies listed on the Investments and Trusts portion of Feldman’s Fiancial Disclosure Report include, TXCO, EV Energy, BPZ Energy, El Paso Corporation, El Paso Pipeline Partners, Chesapeake Energy Corporation and ATP Oil & Gas.
The report was dated May 14, 2009. The judge’s 2009 report has not been released.
Feldman said the Interior Department failed to prove that the Deepwater Horizon explosion was a reflection of any imminent danger coming from all deepwater drilling rigs in the gulf. Furthermore, he denounced the “blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium,” stating that it has clearly harmed the industry and region.
The Louisiana judge with financial investments in the oil and gas industry stated, “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.”
MSNBC reported extra commentary from the judge’s 22-page decision, quoting his series of questions, “Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines?”
All judges who experience a conflict of interest with any litigation are ethically required to recuse themselves from the case. Title 28 of the United States Code, which covers judiciary and judicial procedure states, “Any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Other circumstances listed in the Code as reasons for dismissal from a case include personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or financial interest in the subject matter in controversy.
An Obama administration official reported the government plans to appeal the judge’s order.
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