A 'must read'.

Read at WSJ.com (original source)  FOX News.com (where I found it)
(Emphasis added)

Obama Decried, Then Used, Some Bush Drilling Policies

Published July 05, 2010 | The Wall Street Journal

Less than four months after President Barack Obama took office, his new administration received a forceful warning about the dangers of offshore oil drilling.

The alarm was rung by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., which found that the government was unprepared for a major spill at sea, relying on an "irrational" environmental analysis of the risks of offshore drilling.

The April 2009 ruling stunned both the administration and the oil industry, and threatened to delay or cancel dozens of offshore projects in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite its pro-environment pledges, the Obama administration urged the court to revisit the decision. Politically, it needed to push ahead with conventional oil production while it expanded support for renewable energy.

Another reason: money. In its arguments to the court, the government said that the loss of royalties on the oil, estimated at almost $10 billion, "may have significant financial consequences for the federal government."

The U.S. Court of Appeals reversed its decision and allowed drilling in the Gulf to proceed—including on BP PLC's now-infamous Macondo well, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.

More at the WSJ link above.

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There is a fantastic interactive graph of all oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico right here in WSJ.

and its title is worth looking at prior to seeing the picture of the two alternatives for well design:

Risky Design?

Since 2003, slightly more than one out of every four deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico used a long-string design that congressional investigators and industry experts say is riskier than the alternative. Some companies, such as BP and Anadarko Petroleum, used this design far more frequently than other major operators such as Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron.

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My question is why is the White House interfering in the judicial process.  If the judicial process warned the White House, it is with good reason. We have the best minds in that branch and the separation of power  is a good design with a solid purpose.  It is when we fiddle with the system that things go hay wire... or should we say, muckdy muck.

The trouble is, when you look at this interactive graph of all oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico (graphic hosted on WSJ) you find that there are MANY more of these long-string wells in the Gulf of Mexico. I have to wonder about each of them...





-- Edited by Sanders on Tuesday 6th of July 2010 12:26:31 AM