Once Bought, Does He Stay Bought?

 
Clearly this anonymous federal judge is wholly owned:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday ruled against the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a blow to the White House which had hoped the ban would provide time to ensure other wells are operating safely.

A lawsuit was filed by Louisiana-based Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC and was joined by more than a dozen companies involved in offshore drilling operations to reverse the drilling ban imposed by the U.S. Department of Interior.

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There's not much more in the article. Note, though, that the whole thing was done so secretively that it is not even clear which Louisiana federal judge made the ruling. Here we go again...

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UPDATE: Sierra Club is appealing the decision. We still don't know what date, what court, etc. We must be mushrooms...

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UPDATE: AP (sigh) has more details.

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UPDATE: Ooooh, interesting, from the last-named article:

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Feldman's financial disclosure report for 2008, the most recent available, shows holdings in at least eight petroleum companies or companies that invest in them, including Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon. The report shows that most of his holdings were valued at less than $15,000, though it did not provide specific amounts.

It's not clear whether Feldman still has all of the energy industry stock listed in the report. Recent court filings indicate he may no longer have Transocean shares. He did not own any shares in big companies such as BP PLC, which was leasing the rig that exploded, or ExxonMobil.

Feldman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his current holdings.

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Once bought...

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UPDATE: My DNS is going out again, so this is probably my last post on the subject for the moment. The blog Slabbed has a link to Judge Feldman's 2008 Financial Disclosure Report (.pdf), on which it appears that Energy is his middle name, or perhaps Offshore... in any case, he bought lots of such investments in 2008 (mostly reinvested dividends from the look of it), and there's no indication whether he sold it. This should be veeeery interesting, unless the good Judge manages to squelch the ensuing investigation of his potential conflict of interest. (Now we cross our fingers as I attempt to post this through whatever 'net problems I'm experiencing out there...)

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UPDATE: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is preparing to issue a new ban, of which he says the following:

He promised that the new order will include evidence that "eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities."

Anyone who is not blind, deaf and dumb can see and hear the evidence on the evening news, but I suppose Salazar will offer something a bit more formal.