Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

A three judge panel of the heavily-Republican 5th Circuit Court of Appeal in New Orleans rejected the Department of Interior's request for an emergency stay of Judge Martin Feldman's June 22, 2010 preliminary injunction [PDF], which prevents enforcement of the Department of Interior's six month moratorium on exploratory drilling on only 33 "of the approximately 3,600 structures in the Gulf dedicated to offshore oil exploration and production."

The panel's two Reagan appointees, Judge Jerry E. Smith, joined by Judge W.Eugene Davis, ruled that the government had failed to demonstrate that it would be irreparably harmed if a decision on whether to vacate Judge Feldman's injunction was deferred until after the appeal was heard sometime around the end of August or early September. Judge James L. Dennis, a Clinton appointee, dissented, noting that he did not believe Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar had abused his discretion in ordering a moratorium, which, per the government's motion is limited to those drilling operations that apply "the same technologies employed by Transocean's Deepwater Horizon...only to waters over 500 feet deep..." Since, under the Administrative Procedures Act, a court cannot overturn an agency decision absent an abuse of discretion, Judge Dennis appears to have concluded that Judge Feldman erred in issuing the preliminary injunction.

Judge Dennis did have a question, however, about the six month length of the moratorium.

While yesterday's ruling does not mean that the panel will ultimately rule against the moratorium, the Justice Department and the attorneys representing a number of environmental organizations in the appeal face a daunting climb given Judge Smith's expression of the usual appellate court deference to the findings of the district court judge --- a climb up an oil slicked slope given the ties between the oil industry and the judges who will decide the moratorium's fate...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record summer heat around the world (where are the climate change deniers?); Is air conditioning making America fat(ter)?... PLUS: BP says relief wells will be ready, just in time for their quarterly earnings report ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Nevada Test Site to house solar projects; Don't expect global warming skeptics to give up on Climategate; PA finds spike in environmental violations from natural gas fracking: PA cattle quarantined from gas fracking contamination; UT kids contaminated with arsenic from pet chickens’ feed; Oil industry ramps up opposition to repealing tax breaks; Critics call Valdez cleanup a warning for Gulf workers ...PLUS: A Beach Walk With the Ghosts of Exxon Valdez ...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below.]

It's hump day for my latest week-long sting filling in as Guest Host on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show. We'll be BradCasting LIVE all this week from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

The LIVE chat room will again be up and rolling here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so come on by for that as ya listen! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

So far scheduled for tonight's show...

• DEAN LOGAN, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk on his office's report on the six different failures I encountered while trying and failing (again) to vote last June on the county's ES&S e-voting machines, and on his plans for the future to replace the disastrous systems in the country's largest voting jurisdiction.
• DAVID ROBERTS, Grist.org's climate and energy reporter on the status of federal clean energy legislation, the BP disaster and what cap and trade actually means.
• PLUS: Whatever else you and I feel like talking about, including your calls at 877-520-1150, tweets to @TheBradBlog and whatever else comes up along the way...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A thinking man (and woman)'s show tonight. I think. Lots to bite off and chew into. Enjoy the audio archives below, and the chat archives below them...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

[Ed Note: Ernie Canning appeared as my guest on last night's Mike Malloy Show to discuss Feldman's conflicts-of-interest and the government's appeal described below. The audio archive of that interview can be heard here. - BF]

In a powerful and carefully-crafted 5th Circuit Court of Appeal motion [PDF] filed in Hornbeck Offshore Services vs. Salazar --- a motion which did not touch upon the question of whether U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman's substantial investments in the oil industry mandated a recusal --- the government argued that, in enjoining the Department of Interior's six month suspension of offshore drilling on just 33 "of the approximately 3,600 structures in the Gulf dedicated to offshore oil exploration and production," following the BP/Transocean Deepwater Horizon disaster, Judge Feldman abused his discretion by substituting his own personal judgment over matters that, by statute and federal regulations, are the province of federal officials.

The Department of Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement ("BOEMRE") have the legally mandated duty and authority to regulate such matters, the government is arguing.

"While Plaintiffs’ concerns appear limited to the next financial quarter," the motion explains, "[the Department of] Interior must ensure not only that OCS [Outer Continental Shelf] drilling operations are safe and secure but also that the Nation’s fisheries, coastal ecosystems, and other public lands continue to provide jobs, recreation opportunities, habitat for wildlife, healthy ecosystems, and economic resources for all of the public."

The appellate motion by federal officials calling for a stay of Judge Feldman's recent preliminary injunction on the exploratory drilling moratorium will be argued before a three-judge panel on Thursday...

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

We're back again tonight filling in as Guest Host on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show. We'll be BradCasting LIVE all this week from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Please join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

The LIVE chat room will be up and rolling again here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so come on by for that as ya listen! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

So far scheduled for tonight's show...

• JUDGE VIC RAWL, Four-term South Carolina state legislator and circuit court judge, and recent Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate nomination until the state's 100% unverifiable ES&S e-voting system declared unknown, jobless candidate Alvin Greene the "winner" of the questionable election on June 8th. We'll discuss that, his extraordinary protest hearing before the state Democratic Party, and where he'll go from here after finding what he calls "systemic software problems" and a "lack of election integrity" in South Carolina.
• ERNEST CANNING, member of the California state bar since 1977, political scientist and, most importantly, a guest contributor to BradBlog.com, on the case for impeachment against deep water drilling moratorium Judge Martin Feldman.
• PLUS: Other stuff on my mind and yours via calls at 877-520-1150, tweets to @TheBradBlog, a likely visit from the lovely DESI DOYEN of the Green News Report and whatever else comes up between here and there...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A damned fine show, if I do say so myself. But you'll let me know if I'm wrong. All of it recorded and posted for posterity in audio archives (and even chat archives) below...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A solar boost from Obama; Tarballs in Texas; And a blimp to the rescue... PLUS: Record heat hits Northeast and climate scientists exonerated --- AGAIN --- but climate change deniers still report it this way [cue: crickets] ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How does sewage treatment actually work?; Political protests over fuel costs idle much of India; Scrubbing CO2 from atmosphere would be a long-term commitment; China sentences Tibetan environmentalist to five years in prison; China fears consumer impact of growing middle-class on global warming; Judges nuke Obama's plan to dump Yucca Mtn. dump; Detergent industry does the "impossible" --- adopts voluntary ban on phosphates ...PLUS: Retrofitting suburbia: The task at hand? ...

[UPDATED with audio archives from tonight's show at bottom.]

I'll be filling in as Guest Host on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show LIVE all this week from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 9pm-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT). Hope you'll join us for the mid-summer festivities by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in!

As usual, our LIVE chat room will be up and operating here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so I hope you'll join us for that as well! (The Chat Room will open below a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

So far scheduled for tonight's show...

• GOV. DON SIEGELMAN, Former Governor Alabama, prosecuted for "bribery" and "honest-services fraud" by Karl Rove and the politicized Bush DoJ, on last week's U.S. Supreme Court rulings which vacated his absurd conviction, and remanded it back to the 11th Circuit Appellate Court, on where his case goes from here.
• MAC MCCLELLAND, Mother Jones' human rights reporter/blogger joins us LIVE from the Gulf where she's been covering the BP oil disaster, and the continuing efforts to keep media from covering the ongoing devastation.
• PLUS: Other stuff on my mind --- and on yours via your calls at 877-520-1150, your tweets to @TheBradBlog, and whatever else comes up between here and there...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates around the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.

Click here to jump into our LIVE Chat Room during the show. Or just see below!...

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Once again, three hours flew by! The audio archives follow below, along with the archives of the chat room if you'd like to listen and read along at the same time!...

Guest Blogged by Sue Wilson

Just days after resigning as Chairman of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, former talk show host at Sacramento's KFBK radio, began encouraging people to file claims for the BP fund which is being set up to provide financial assistance to those damaged by the Gulf oil spill. He's not just encouraging residents of the Gulf or those who do business with Gulf Coast fisheries to file claims; he is encouraging everyone in the country to file a claim against BP, and brags about having done so himself.

Williams asserts on his blog, MarkTalk.com, that in so filing, people are not stealing. He writes, "You are only recouping some of your own money that the Obama regime is stealing from you to redistribute," and he cites fund administrator Ken Feinberg as telling people "we should '...all file a claim…' because specific criteria for valid claims has not yet been set."

He further writes, "Let's show the Marxists who occupy our government and their flying monkey supporters what life under socialism is really like when the productive stop producing and join the gravy train."

The BP fund, according to a conversation I had with Feinberg's office this week, "is paid entirely by BP." Even the administration of the fund is paid by the private corporation which caused the spill. "There are no merits to claim that U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill."

Nonetheless, Williams describes the fund as run by "Marxists", constituting "life under socialism", and as nothing short of a "gravy train". Yet, oddly enough, it's the "conservative" Mark Williams, whose agenda could lead to the waste of untold numbers of tax-payer dollars...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: BP Disaster now Worst Ever in the Gulf --- and worse than any of us can imagine; BP was ready for walruses, but not hurricanes; John Kerry, ready as ever to compromise... PLUS: Baby it's hot outside, around the world --- and on Capitol Hill ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Solar-powered plane set for pioneering night flight; U.S. fines BP for underpayment of gas royalties to Indian tribes; Dengue fever re-emerges in U.S.; Fossil fuel subsidies dwarf global clean energy; Fisker to build electric cars in old GM plant; Asia gripped by water crisis; Fannie & Freddie derail home energy retrofit incentives; New Zealand implement Emissions Trading; Arctic hyper-sensitive to global warming ...PLUS: Green Up your Red, White & Blue! Tips to have your greenest July 4th evah! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane season in the Gulf begins with a BP bang; Saving the BP baby turtles ... PLUS: Impeaching the BP judge? ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): "Climategate" Continues To Sputter Out; G20 protests focus on Canada's mining and tar sands; Uranium mining health effects linger, even 30 years later; Antarctic crustaceans in peril? Jet Hypermiling across the Atlantic saves fuel; Potentially Harmful Chemicals Used in Pa. Drilling; New mine safety legislation unveiled ...PLUS: The other oil spill: Millions of gallons oil spilled on CO lands...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

On Thursday The BRAD BLOG posted an article in which I offered the legal underpinnings supporting the case for the impeachment of U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman in light of his failure to recuse himself due to conflicts-of-interest in Hornbeck Offshore Services vs. Salazar [PDF].

The case for unseating the federal judge has grown still stronger at week's end, with new disclosures of his investments in the off shore oil drilling industry and what appears to be a very conscious decision to remain on the case despite them.

New evidence now suggests that the actions of Judge Feldman, at the very outset of the moratorium case, are particularly damning. Those new revelations support not only a case for impeachment against the Reagan-appointee who, as has also come to light, is reportedly a very close friend of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but they also reveal a lifetime appointee to the federal bench who is simply unfit to remain in office...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 Reagan appointee to the federal bench, issued what, on its face, would have to be regarded as an astounding decision [PDF] in which he blocked a six month moratorium on deep water off shore drilling, ruling that the Department of the Interior had erroneously assumed that because one rig failed, there was an imminent danger of others failing as well.

A perplexed Justice Department promptly announced that it intends to seek an immediate stay of Judge Feldman's preliminary injunction pending an appeal.

Setting aside what appears to be an inappropriate judicial intrusion by a Federalist Society-connected jurist into the prerogatives of the Executive branch in protecting public health, safety and the environment, setting aside the misguided notion that the burden rests with the government rather than the oil companies when it comes to demonstrating whether deep water drilling procedures are safe, Judge Feldman's decision --- and his failure to recuse himself despite conflict-of-interest concerns --- raises a significant question as to whether he should be impeached...

Good for him. Now, at some point, he needs to hold his own "news" channel accountable for all the damage they've done as well...

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters has some related thoughts on whether the BP disaster will turn out to be Fox's "tipping point".

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The cap comes off, but is now back on; The moratorium is off, but may soon be back on; Fox you, Charles Krauthammer... PLUS: Asian Invasion in the Great Lakes! --- Asian Carp, that is ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Supreme Court lifts ban on planting GM alfalfa; Murdoch UK newspaper apologizes to climate scientist; What goes into (and comes out of) a barrel of tar sands oil; Four BP-style extreme energy nightmares to come; Coal industry costs W.Va. state budget millions more than it generates ...PLUS: America's magical thinking on energy ...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Breaking: Moratorium struck down by judge, White House to appeal; Now it's 100,000 barrels of oil per day; More whaling?; Wildfires, floods and mudslides, oh my;...PLUS: Praying the Spill away ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): U.S. Chamber of Commerce should support climate bill, based on its own methodology; Twilight of the Coal Era?; USDA proposes antitrust rule on meat industry; Report: Food prices to rise by up to 40% over next decade; Malaria in Brazil linked to forest clearing; FERC to issue new rules upgrading nation's electicity transmission grid ...PLUS: Experts Warn Climate Change Is Beginning to Disrupt Agriculture ...