And crippling America’s ability to fuel and feed herself – is there nothing that Obama can’t do?
Salazar to Gulf workers: Move to Egypt.
Federal Judge Martin Feldman in late June halted the Administration’s six-month deep water drilling moratorium, saying it was arbitrary, ignored science and underestimated the economic harm to the Gulf region. Last week the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate the ban.
Mr. Salazar’s response is to fiddle with the ban’s details in the hope of passing judicial muster. Instead of banning all drilling deeper than 500 feet, he now bans all drilling by floating rigs (the only equipment that drills in deep water). He also set a firmer moratorium deadline of November 30. The bottom line is that deep water drilling remains off-limits for months to come.
Finance Overhaul Casts Long Shadow on the Plains
Far from Wall Street, President Barack Obama’s financial regulatory overhaul, which may pass Congress as early as Thursday, will leave tracks across the wide-open landscape of American industry.
Designed to fix problems that helped cause the financial crisis, the bill will touch storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus, attesting to the sweeping nature of the legislation, the broadest revamp of finance rules since the 1930s.
Here in Nebraska farm country, those in the business of bringing beef from hoof to mouth are anxious, specifically about the bill’s provisions that tighten rules governing derivatives. Some worry the coming curbs will make it riskier and pricier to do business.
In 2008 I wrote “The accounts of western governments (from the local to the federal) kneecapping the very infrastructure upon which modern metropolitan life depends – including reliable electricity, food production, and the transport of essential goods – are so routine now, one can hardly keep track.” But the pace at which this is escalating has surprised even me.
Related: Americans are noticing.
