Greening Austin Daily

Texas AG Files Lawsuit Against Federal Government Over Gulf Drilling Ban

12th August, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

The Statesman has this article today, which states:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to end a moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.The drilling ban, announced July 12 amid fears of additional catastrophic blowouts after the Deepwater Horizon disaster pumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf, was enacted without consulting Texas — or properly weighing the economic impact — as required by federal law, Abbott told a U.S. District Court in Houston.

“Affected states are guaranteed the right to participate in offshore drilling-related policy decisions, but the Obama administration did not bother to communicate, coordinate or cooperate with Texas,” Abbott said Wednesday. “Worse, the secretary of the interior failed to consider the economic consequences of his decision.”