3 ms·

From the judge: He wrote that “the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why,

by jbooth 16y ago

From the judge: He wrote that “the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.” Personally, if I have a component fail violently and no explanation why, then I tend to err on the side of caution until I have some answers.. but that's just me. I'm sure this judge knows what he's doing.

hga 16y ago
For an evenhanded report on the decision including a link to the actual decision, try The Volokh Conspiracy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889 Here's the words that are wrapped about the about incendiary NYT quote: "The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm. While the implementation of regulations and a new culture of safety are supportable by the Report and the documents presented, the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger. On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium. As a matter of law, I suspect the judge does know what he's doing. And we are, or at least aspire to be, a nation that lives under the rule of law, not men. Also, as he notes: "no one yet fully knows why", which is very different from "no explanation why". We know quite a bit about how this happened, probably enough to prevent it from happening again with the current state of the art. BP wasn't following industry best practices, wasn't listening to its subcontractor, saw a bunch of large red flags as previously noted in in submissions to HN, etc. etc. Prior to the inevitable new regulations, we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon. After all, the last one was 30 years ago (Ixtoc I); the real danger will be when people become complacent again.
- jbooth 16y ago
  The extra words don't change what he's saying at all, or make it particularly less incendiary. Yeah, it was a tragedy, I love puppies, blah blah, but here's what I'm saying: "Even though this blew up and nobody knows why, and even though this was allegedly safe under the previous inspection regime, I see no reason to stop drilling for 6 months while we figure what went wrong." The preamble doesn't change anything.
  - hga 16y ago
    Well, read the rest and see what it says. NOTE: jbooth probably wrote his "nobody knows why" while I was adding to my initial draft of my posting that we actually do know a lot of why it happened.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      I skimmed the rest of the excerpt on Volokh. It seems like this judge is playing politics. He's not an engineer. He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality. And yeah, the report the administration sent to him sounds sloppy -- that's more of a reason to be cautious for a few months while they get their house in order. "You must prove imminent danger beyond a reasonable doubt before I let you take cautionary measures" is a sort of ridiculous position to take. EDIT: Regarding your addendum to your previous comment: "we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon." -- I see absolutely no reason to assume this to be the case. Do you see them voluntarily stopping drilling and auditing all of their processes to make sure they're ok? Probably not, right? So stuff's gonna continue the same as before.
      - hga 16y ago
        "He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality." Not exactly. As a court of first instance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_courts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_courts) "[...] evidence and testimony are admitted under the rules of evidence established by applicable procedural law and determinations called findings of fact are made based on the evidence. The court, presided over by one or more judges, makes findings of law based upon the applicable law." Also note that the domain of the ruling is not the engineering per se but how the executive came to its moratorium decision. In the case of a preliminary injunction he's supposed to assume that all the questions of facts go in the favor of the defendant (the government) and to then decide if as a matter of law the plaintiff would likely win anyway. Hence the closing paragraph I included above.

by jbooth 16y ago

hga 16y ago

For an evenhanded report on the decision including a link to the actual decision, try The Volokh Conspiracy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1452889 Here's the words that are wrapped about the about incendiary NYT quote: "The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster. What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm. While the implementation of regulations and a new culture of safety are supportable by the Report and the documents presented, the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger. On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium. As a matter of law, I suspect the judge does know what he's doing. And we are, or at least aspire to be, a nation that lives under the rule of law, not men. Also, as he notes: "no one yet fully knows why", which is very different from "no explanation why". We know quite a bit about how this happened, probably enough to prevent it from happening again with the current state of the art. BP wasn't following industry best practices, wasn't listening to its subcontractor, saw a bunch of large red flags as previously noted in in submissions to HN, etc. etc. Prior to the inevitable new regulations, we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon. After all, the last one was 30 years ago (Ixtoc I); the real danger will be when people become complacent again.

jbooth 16y ago
The extra words don't change what he's saying at all, or make it particularly less incendiary. Yeah, it was a tragedy, I love puppies, blah blah, but here's what I'm saying: "Even though this blew up and nobody knows why, and even though this was allegedly safe under the previous inspection regime, I see no reason to stop drilling for 6 months while we figure what went wrong." The preamble doesn't change anything.
- hga 16y ago
  Well, read the rest and see what it says. NOTE: jbooth probably wrote his "nobody knows why" while I was adding to my initial draft of my posting that we actually do know a lot of why it happened.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    I skimmed the rest of the excerpt on Volokh. It seems like this judge is playing politics. He's not an engineer. He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality. And yeah, the report the administration sent to him sounds sloppy -- that's more of a reason to be cautious for a few months while they get their house in order. "You must prove imminent danger beyond a reasonable doubt before I let you take cautionary measures" is a sort of ridiculous position to take. EDIT: Regarding your addendum to your previous comment: "we can have a reasonable expectation that other drillers will pay sufficient attention to all this and avoid another nasty blowout anytime soon." -- I see absolutely no reason to assume this to be the case. Do you see them voluntarily stopping drilling and auditing all of their processes to make sure they're ok? Probably not, right? So stuff's gonna continue the same as before.
    - hga 16y ago
      "He's not supposed to be ruling on policy, just on legality." Not exactly. As a court of first instance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_courts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_courts) "[...] evidence and testimony are admitted under the rules of evidence established by applicable procedural law and determinations called findings of fact are made based on the evidence. The court, presided over by one or more judges, makes findings of law based upon the applicable law." Also note that the domain of the ruling is not the engineering per se but how the executive came to its moratorium decision. In the case of a preliminary injunction he's supposed to assume that all the questions of facts go in the favor of the defendant (the government) and to then decide if as a matter of law the plaintiff would likely win anyway. Hence the closing paragraph I included above.