New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- The battle over President Obama's effort to suspend deepwater drilling will intensify Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Louisiana.
Oral arguments for Hornbeck v. Salazar, the case that challenged the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater drilling, get under way in New Orleans.
As the case proceeds, others are hoping that the seas will be calm enough for vessels to return to cleaning up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that prompted Obama to seek the drilling ban.
Rough seas delayed the Helix Producer from being connected to the ruptured oil well. If the vessel is connected, it could draw up to 53,000 barrels of oil a day, according to officials.
Seas may be calm enough Thursday or Friday for the vessel to be connected, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's pointman for the cleanup.
The choppy waters also stalled cleanup in the Louisiana area, said Charles Gaiennie, a spokesman for the cleanup effort in the state.
Federal estimates say between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels (about 1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons) of oil have been gushing into the Gulf daily since late April when the Deepwater Horizon sank after an explosion aboard the drilling rig.
Fears over the spill extend all the way to Florida's Atlantic shores. Small tar balls continued to wash ashore Wednesday at Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral.
Also on Wednesday, Alliance for Justice, an advocacy group, released a scathing report that many Appellate Court judges have extensive ties to the oil industry, including the three-judge panel that will preside over the drilling ban hearing.
