A federal judge on Wednesday rejected a motion by the U.S. government to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the government-imposed six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling.

The Interior Department initially imposed the ban in the aftermath of the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. A group of offshore oil companies filed a lawsuit claiming the government has no evidence that deepwater drilling poses a threat to the Gulf and asked the court to declare the ban invalid.

Federal judge Martin Feldman on Wednesday denied the government’s request to dismiss the case. The same judge struck down the ban in June. The Interior Department later re-imposed the ban with some changes.

In its motion to dismiss the suit, the government argued the case should be thrown out because the initial moratorium “has been revoked and superseded by a new, second moratorium,” adding that the plaintiffs “have only challenged the May 28 moratorium and that directive has been rescinded and lacks any present legal effect.”

However, in Wednesday’s ruling, Feldman agreed with the plaintiffs, noting that “in reality, the new moratorium covers precisely the same rigs and precisely the same deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as did the first moratorium.”

A second lawsuit challenging the newer moratorium was reportedly filed.