Judicial supremacy made an unexpected comeback this week with Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana, a "fair" and "terrifying" judge (who, for what it’s worth, dismissed one of my cases a few months ago — no hard feelings), granting an injunction against the Secretary of the Interior from enforcing the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater oil drilling because the moratorium was "arbitrary and capricious:"

After reviewing the Secretary’s Report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium. The Report, invoked by the Secretary, describes the offshore oil industry in the Gulf and offers many compelling recommendations to improve safety. But it offers no time line for implementation, though many of the proposed changes are represented to be implemented immediately. The Report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium. It is incident specific and driven: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others. While the Report notes the increase in deepwater drilling over the past ten years and the increased safety risk associated with deepwater drilling, the parameters of “deepwater” remain confused. And drilling elsewhere simply seems driven by political or social agendas on all sides. The Report seems to define “deepwater” as drilling beyond a depth of 1000 feet by referencing the increased difficulty of drilling beyond this depth; similarly, the shallowest depth referenced in the maps and facts included in the Report is “less than 1000 feet.” But while there is no mention of the 500 feet depth anywhere in the Report itself, the Notice to Lessees suddenly defines “deepwater” as more than 500 feet.

… The Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition Presentation attempts at some clarification of the decision to define “deepwater” as depths greater than 500 feet. It is undisputed that at depths of over 500 feet, floating rigs must be used, and the Executive Summary to the Report refers to a moratorium on drilling using “floating rigs.” Other documents submitted summarize some of the tests and studies performed. For example, one study showed that at 3000psi, the shear rams on three of the six tested rigs failed to shear their samples; in the follow up study, various ram models were tested on 214 pipe samples and 7.5% were unsuccessful at shearing the pipe below 3000psi. How these studies support a finding that shear equipment does not work consistently at 500 feet is incomprehensible. If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavyhanded, and rather overbearing.

… While the implementation of regulations and a new culture of safety are supportable by the Report and the documents presented, the blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.

On the record now before the Court, the defendants have failed to cogently reflect the decision to issue a blanket, generic, indeed punitive, moratorium with the facts developed during the thirty-day review. The plaintiffs have established a likelihood of successfully showing that the Administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium.

Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog has been all over the story, with lots of followup links and questions about Judge Feldman’s oil industry investments.

I don’t agree with the ruling; the government’s assumption, as worded by Judge Feldman, "that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger" is sound. We still don’t know why the "failsafe" measures on the Deepwater Horizon failed to be safe. Although the government’s conclusions included a number of inconsistencies, it’s hard to argue that the government’s chosen remedy — the moratorium — was not rationally related to the compelling national interest of limiting the amount of oil in the Gulf of Mexico to the millions of gallons already there.

But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. From a purely legal standpoint, the order isn’t extraordinary. Although the writ of habeas corpus is rightly called "the Great Writ" by virtue of its ability to force the federal and the states’ governments alike to release an individual from confinement, the Great Writ’s less heralded cousin civil context is the Administrative Procedures Act, which is almost constitutional in its breadth and power:

 To the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law, interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and determine the meaning or applicability of the terms of an agency action. The reviewing court shall—

 
(1) compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed; and

(2) hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be—

(A) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;
(B) contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity;
(C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right;
(D) without observance of procedure required by law;
(E) unsupported by substantial evidence in a case subject to sections 556 and 557 of this title or otherwise reviewed on the record of an agency hearing provided by statute; or
(F) unwarranted by the facts to the extent that the facts are subject to trial de novo by the reviewing court. 

5 U.S.C. § 706.

There it is, plain as day, a statute enacted by the Congress the President empowering (commanding, some might say) federal judges to set aside any decision by any federal agency — the means by which the President and his Cabinet effectuate their policies — if they find that agency action to be "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law."

That’s why the exercise of this power is not, by itself, noteworthy: it’s exactly how our government’s checks and balances are supposed to function. As another check on the system, despite some suggestions otherwise, federal appellate courts (like the Fifth Circuit) can and do engage in a searching analysis of injunctions. See Karaha Bodas v. Perusahaan Pertambangan Minyak, 335 F. 3d 357, 363-364 (5th Cir. 2003)(Reversing injunction, noting "Even though the ultimate decision whether to grant or deny a preliminary injunction is reviewed only for abuse of discretion, a decision grounded in erroneous legal principles is reviewed de novo. … We have cautioned [that] a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy which should only be granted if the party seeking the injunction has clearly carried the burden of persuasion on all four requirements. As a result, the decision to grant a preliminary injunction is to be treated as the exception rather than the rule.")

As favorable as the Fifth Circuit sometimes is to oil interests, there’s good odds they would likely have reversed this injunction and sent it back for the District Court to craft a more limited remedy that preserved the moratorium against any oil platforms that were comparable to, or had comparable risks of, the Deepwater Horizon.

But the main point here is what happened as a result of the order: the Secretary of the Interior announced he would issue a new, more detailed, possibly more narrowly-crafted moratorium. And that’s just what the APA was designed to do: to limit the ability of the federal government’s agencies to impose their will on people, to force them to "refine" their actions when necessary. Moreover, at the moment, no additional damage is being done to the Gulf, and Judge Feldman has scheduled a conference call this morning to consider staying his injunction while the Department of the Interior appeals his ruling and issues a new moratorium.

Thus, as critical as I might be of the reasoning of the order, the fact of the order is something to herald: for once, your government is functioning the way it is supposed to.