Deepwater Drilling Moratorium Ended

Big deal:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday afternoon that deepwater oil and gas drilling could resume. Salazar said in a statement that the drilling could go on with some conditions, including "compliance with all existing rules and requirements, including those that recently went into effect, and that members of industry demonstrate the availability of adequate blowout containment resources."

This decision had nothing to do with drilling safety and everything to do with the midterm elections that come up in three weeks. In fact, there probably won't be much of any new drilling because of this change since many of the rigs that would have been drilling all along have been moved to other parts of the world. The ones that remain are under such tight regulation it may not be worthwhile for the companies to restart them.

As it turns out the moratorium was completely unnecessary and the oil spill, as big as it was, did little of the damage the administration had forecast.  As it turns out Mother Nature is pretty good at cleaning up messes like this.