more on Salazar logic
this from today's WSJ
the really odd moment came when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement that he was looking to the [presidential]commission for information that could inform the administration’s position on halting deepwater drilling.
Salazar’s statement stunned the commission’s two co-chairmen, William K. Reilly and Bob Graham, who said they had been assured by Salazar’s office and the White House that giving advice on the moratorium wasn’t their job.
“We’re 10 minutes old,” Reilly told an audience in New Orleans, where the commission held its first hearing. “The idea we’d have a near-term responsibility to make recommendations on policy was not our understanding [of the panel’s mission] and is not consistent with my most recent conversation with [Interior Deputy Secretary] David Hayes, who said the Interior Department didn’t look to this commision for advice” on the matter.
the bolded part is in direct contradiction to Salazar's comments in Moratorium II.
and from elsewhere in today's WSJ
"Despite assurances from the White House and the Interior Department, about one-third of the shallow water fleet has been idled by the application of what can only be called a de facto moratorium," said Jim Noe, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Hercules Offshore, a large shallow-water driller.
Mr. Salazar's announcement came minutes after a presidential commission investigating the causes of the Gulf oil spill heard testimony in New Orleans from Larry Dickerson, president and CEO of Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. He said the moratorium has already prompted his company to send two deepwater rigs to foreign waters, and warned that "there won't be much of a U.S. industry left" if the moratorium lasts six months.
