PUBLIC CORRUPTION — MAJORITY OF JUDGES HEARING DRILLING MORATORIUM APPEAL ATTENDED OIL-FUNDED JUNKETS: Last month, Judge Martin Feldman, a federal trial judge in Louisiana, handed down a poorly reasoned opinion lifting the Obama administration’s temporary moratorium on new oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Feldman’s most recent financial disclosure form indicates that he is heavily invested in oil companies. Yesterday in New Orleans, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided to stay Judge Feldman’s decision in a 2-1 vote, citing the Interior Department’s failure “to show the the federal government would suffer ‘irreparable injury’ if the moratorium is lifted.” According to a new report by the Alliance for Justice, it is unlikely that these Fifth Circuit judges approached the case without the perception of bias. Judges Jerry Smith and Eugene Davis, both of whom were assigned to the panel and ruled in favor of the oil companies, attended expense-paid “junkets for judges” sponsored by oil-industry front group, Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE). Both men also worked as oil-industry litigators before their appointments to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Davis owns as much as $30,000 in oil investments. The one dissenting judge, Judge James Dennis, has not received any free trips from the oil industry, but does hold investments in oil stocks. Incidentally, of the sixteen active judges who make up the full Fifth Circuit, ten have oil investments, including the court’s Chief Judge, Edith Jones. In addition to owning as much as $330,000 in oil investmen