month federal moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is scheduled to end on Nov. 30. Complaining of job losses, politicians in the gulf and many in industry are demanding that it be lifted now. Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, is threatening to block President Obama's nominee for budget director unless drilling is allowed to resume quickly. The only question that should matter is whether government and industry have learned enough since the BP blowout to proceed safely, said The New York Times in an editorial published Tuesday. Excerpts: As to the Obama administration, the answer is mostly yes. After a shockingly slow and disorganized start, it has reorganized and strengthened the regulatory agencies, stiffened environmental reviews and otherwise raised standards for approval for all deep-water drilling projects – not only in the gulf but elsewhere on America's Continental Shelf. Government and industry have to improve their capacity to respond to a major spill. And Congress needs to give these reforms the force of law (making it harder for another administration to backslide) and provide more money for increased inspections and oversight. But after years of serving industry, the regulators seem finally to understand that their first responsibility is to the public and the environment. It is impossible, at this point, to tell whether industry gets it. Four major companies – ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips – have promised to invest $1 billion in new response capacity that would broadly replicate the “top kill” technology that took BP months of floundering to find; BP says it will join the effort. Yet the list of what went wrong is long, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is right to say he will lift the moratorium only when he is comfortable that industry has “significantly reduced” the risks of another blowout. __
