Salazar to issue new moratorium order

NEW ORLEANS, June 22 (UPI) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Tuesday said he will issue an order reinstituting a moratorium on Gulf of Mexico deepwater oil drilling.

Salazar's announcement followed one by the White House that the Obama administration will appeal the order by a federal judge in New Orleans granting a preliminary injunction to block the six-month ban.

The moratorium was ordered after the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP exploded April 20 and sank two days later, spewing oil unchecked into the gulf ever since. Eleven oil rig workers were killed in the explosion.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman's ruling prohibits the federal government from enforcing its moratorium on drilling in more than 500 feet of water while safety issues are investigated.

A group of companies that provide boats and equipment to the offshore drilling industry challenged the moratorium, claiming the government doesn't have evidence demonstrating existing operations threaten the gulf, CNN reported. The group wants the ban declared invalid and unenforceable.

Salazar issued a statement late Tuesday saying the decision to impose the moratorium "was and is the right decision. The moratorium is needed to protect the communities and the environment of the Gulf Coast, and [the Justice Department] is therefore appealing today's court ruling."

Salazar said evidence mounts every day that the oil industry "needs to raise the bar on blowout prevention, containment, and response planning before deepwater drilling should continue."

"Based on this ever-growing evidence, I will issue a new order in the coming days that eliminates any doubt that a moratorium is needed, appropriate, and within our authorities," he said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday President Barack Obama "strongly believes -- as the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice argued yesterday -- that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened ... does not make any sense" and potentially puts workers and the environment at risk.

Continued drilling also "potentially puts safety of those on the rigs and safety of the environment in the gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now," Gibbs said at the daily White House press briefing.