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By Rebecca Mowbray

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman granted a motion for a preliminary injunction against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Thursday in a suit brought by the shallow-water drilling company Ensco Offshore Co., and ordered the regulatory agency to act on five pending permit applications within 30 days.

The bureau is also required to report its compliance to the court.

Before the Deepwater Horizon disaster last April, it took about two weeks to process drilling permits, but the five permits in question in the Ensco case have been pending for between four and nine months.

After resolving questions about whether the court had the authority to impose a time frame for an agency decision, Feldman decided to intervene, saying that the Department of Interior has a duty to act on permit applications after accepting them for review. Feldman determined that the delay in permit actions was “unreasonable.”

“The permitting backlog becomes increasingly inexcusable,” Feldman wrote. “Perhaps it is reasonable for permit applicants to wait more than two weeks in a necessarily more closely regulated environment. Delays of four months and more in the permitting process are unreasonable, unacceptable and unjustified by the evidence before the Court.”

Feldman further stated that it appears that the government hasn’t considered any applications that fell within the scope of the moratorium issued after the April 20 rig explosion and 86-day oil spill.

In issuing his finding, Feldman granted a preliminary injunction, saying that Ensco, a drilling company previously based in Texas with operations in Louisiana, demonstrated a substantial likelihood of injury if the court didn’t act.

A Justice Department spokesman said attorneys were reviewing Feldman’s decision, and the department would have no comment at this time.

Jim Noe, executive director of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, hailed Feldman’s ruling demanding that the government break the permitting logjam and cited last week’s demise of a major shallow-water drilling company, Seahawk Drilling Inc.

“The current pace at which BOEMRE issues permits is crippling our industry,” Noe said. “Drilling jobs, support workers and the Gulf region’s fragile economy have been needlessly placed in peril. We hope today’s court action will at long last compel the Interior Department to refocus on its statutory mandate to develop U.S. offshore resources. As the judge signaled today, it is high time BOEMRE created a more efficient, risk-based and timely method for issuing permits for responsible offshore energy production.”

Last month Feldman found the federal government in civil contempt of his court in a suit dealing with deepwater oil exploration brought by Covington-based Hornbeck Offshore Services, and ordered the government to pay Hornbeck’s costs for waging the suit.

Original Article