On March 10, 2016, Judge Carl Barbier ruled that economic loss claims resulting from the moratorium on offshore drilling imposed by the US government after the ‘Deepwater Horizon’ blowout in 2010 cannot be brought against BP , as the responsible party under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (“OPA”), 33 U.S.C. § 2702(a). The losses resulted from the perceived threat of discharge from other wells, rather than from discharge or the substantial threat of discharge from the Macondo well.