by Meteor Blades
Ian Urbina at The New York Times writes: 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. Asked about the permits and waivers, officials at the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf. Department of the Interior officials said in a statement that the moratorium was meant only to halt permits for the drilling of new wells. It was not meant to stop permits for new work on existing drilling projects like the Deepwater Horizon. = = = [The green diary rescue begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it. The GDR appears on Thursdays and Sundays.] Above is one of the photos with which Eddie C beautified the site in his Friday Evening Photo Blogging: Wave Hill Edition. Gangster Octopus was delighted to learn that Tesla, Toyota Team Up to Create 1,000 Jobs: "'In a stunning deal, Tesla Motors announced late Thursday that it is teaming up with Toyota to build its all-electric Model S sedan at the recently shuttered NUMMI plant in Fremont, creating more than 1,000 new jobs.'"
continued at Daily Kos....
