The Interior Department had hinted an appeal was coming at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Interior appeals oil drilling ruling

The Obama administration has fired another shot in the fight over the speed with which the Interior Department is — or isn’t — letting oil drillers resume work in the Gulf of Mexico after last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

The administration late Friday appealed a judge’s orders directing the department to act on several pending Gulf Coast deep-water drilling permits.


Gulf state lawmakers and the oil industry have accused the department of dragging its feet on the permits, enacting a de facto moratorium against new drilling, while the department has said it needs to ensure that safety and environmental protections are in place.

Friday’s appeal challenges rulings by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, who on Feb. 17 gave the department 30 days to make a verdict on five pending deep-water drilling permit applications. He later added two permits to that order.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hinted at the appeal during a Senate hearing Wednesday.

Feldman “in my view is wrong,” Salazar said. “And we will argue the case because I don’t believe that the court has the jurisdiction to basically tell the Department of the Interior what my administrative responsibilities are.”

“The policy we have in mind is unmistakingly clear,” he added. “We are moving forward with the development of oil and gas” production.

Earlier in February, the judge held the department in contempt, citing its “dismissive conduct” in blocking offshore drilling during last year’s spill.

The delay in issuing permits since last year’s Gulf oil spill is “increasingly inexcusable,” Feldman wrote.

The Interior Department on Monday announced the approval of the first deep-water drilling permit held up since last year’s spill. The permit, issued to Noble Energy for a well partly owned by BP, was not one of those that Feldman’s ruling addressed.