Obama's job killer energy policy

NY Times:

Chett Chiasson, the executive director of Port Fourchon in Louisiana, has a message for President Obama — and any Americans who have applauded the administration’s decision to halt deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico: You just don’t get it.

“I don’t know that this country realizes the cascading impacts of this moratorium,” said Mr. Chiasson, whose estimates that his port handles 90 percent of the traffic servicing the deep-water oil and gas industry in the gulf. “It’s going to have an impact for years to come.”

The Interior Department’s six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling most directly affects 17 oil companies, including multinational giants like BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron. The order, issued May 27, forced 33 rigs to shut down operations.

Every one of those rigs is serviced out of Port Fourchon, according to Mr. Chiasson, so the drilling ban could end up slashing the incomes of thousands of other workers — from welders and divers to caterers and drivers — who depend on the industry.

One oil industry group, the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, has estimated that each exploration and production job represents four supporting jobs in and around the region. If that is the case, thousands of jobs — and millions of dollars in wages — could be affected by the work stoppage, the group said.

With that in mind, a growing chorus of residents, business owners and local politicians in the gulf region are imploring the Obama administration to reconsider the deep-water drilling ban.

“We need to know what you are prepared to do to prevent catastrophic damage to our battered economy,” said an editorial addressed to the president that appeared in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans on Friday. “It is not clear, Mr. President, why it will take six months to determine what went wrong on Deepwater Horizon and how to remedy safety deficiencies.”

In a separate letter Wednesday to Mr. Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said: “During one of the most challenging economic periods in decades, the last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more.”

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Under a legislative proposal put forth by the White House, workers who lose their jobs as a result of the moratorium would be eligible for unemployment assistance, and new jobs would be created in cleanup, restoration, renovation and recovery.

But for Mr. Chiasson and the myriad businesses clustered around Port Fourchon, that is likely to be cold comfort.

“I have 37 employees, and I have to look at how I’m going to protect those jobs,” Mr. Chiasson said.

When the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, releasing a still-continuing torrent of oil into the gulf, representatives from at least 13 different companies were on board. Besides high-level engineers and managers from Transocean, which operated the rig, and BP, which held the lease on it, the workers included cooks, tank washers and laundry workers employed by a medley of subcontracted companies.

A long-term pause in deep-water work could be devastating to local economies already struggling with fishing restrictions, frightened tourists and other effects of the spill.

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Obama is more worried about criticism from his greenie base than he is about real workers. There is no reason why they can't do the study at the same time work goes forward on other drilling. It is not like those companies are looking for an opportunity to screw up and have to pay billions in clean up cost. The assumptions of the President and his anti energy supporters are just off base.

Fox News has more on the political fallout of the screwy moratorium.