Apparently there was a ban on both shallow and deepwater (more than 500 feet) drilling. The shallow ban expired. And so..
Federal regulators approved Wednesday the first new Gulf of Mexico oil well since President Barack Obama lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water, even while deepwater projects remain frozen after the massive BP spill.
The Minerals Management Service granted a new drilling permit sought by Bandon Oil and Gas for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 feet below the ocean's surface. It's south of Rockefeller State Wildlife Refuge and Game Preserve, far to the west of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the BP spill.
Obama last week extended a moratorium on wells in deep water like the BP one that blew out a mile below the surface in April and is gushing millions of gallons of oil. But at the same time, the president quietly allowed a three-week-old ban on drilling in shallow water to expire.
One of the reasons it is so hard to plug the BP leak is the massive pressure at such deep depths. Presumably that would explain why a shallow offshore drilling could be considered more safe.
But I don't understand the optics. Is it really necessary now? Did any of the President's speeches mention this distinction between shallow and deepwater drills? This is the first I have heard of it. I would like to think that there is some kind of strategy behind this but this seems so impossibly tone deaf.
It doesn't seem like energy reform will pass, but even if it did, it would have to be really good to make up for the fact that it denies states the rights to make their own reforms, and California's landmark greenhouse emissions law, AB 32, is already being attacked by Big Oil (in the guise of a "California Jobs Initiative"). I don't know how new drilling now helps the clean energy cause at all.
UPDATE: NYTvia myDD:
In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.
The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.