Month 6, Day 23: The Dolphins Are Full Of Oil. Why Should Federal Judges Be Any Different?

So the judge who overturned the drilling moratorium turns out to own a bunch of stock in oil and drilling companies. Gosh! Who could have expected it?

Time Magazine ran an AP story on the injunction, but didn’t mention the Judge’s questionable investing practices, so I sent them the following:

It should come as no surprise that Judge Martin Feldman, who just blocked the administration’s proposed moratorium on deepwater drilling, appears have substantial investments in companies involved in the offshore oil industry. Judge Feldman, according to 2008 reports, even owns stock in Transocean, the owners of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon platform. That Mr. Feldman did not immediately recuse himself from the case is revealing; it suggests that such a level of financial intimacy between the oil industry and the judiciary is not particularly remarkable. Oil kills pelicans, dolphins, fish and whales. It ruins ecosystems and local economies. It is destroying the atmosphere. It sullies everything it touches — including, apparently, the administration of justice in America. Even leaving aside the threat of catastrophic climate change, that alone should be reason to shift our consumption patterns — why continue giving money to the corrupt and undeserving?

Warren Senders