US Coast Guard/Handout/Corbis
Support to overturn the temporary ban is coming from an unlikely place: the gulf states.
Obama suspended drilling in more than 500 feet of water for six months in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but a U.S. District Court judge may rule as early as this afternoon on whether to lift that ban early. That would be a move supported by many in the gulf states, including companies that make their living supplying the offshore rigs and the Louisiana governor’s office.
“This is environmental disaster. Let’s not make an economic disaster,” Henry Dart, an attorney for the Louisiana government, told CNN.