Obama's Drilling Freeze Will Cost Over 120,000 Jobs (It Should Cost the President His)

President Obama's freeze on off shore drilling defies all logic, its like getting into a car accident and proposing a ban on all auto manufacturing. What makes the matter worse, the ban is harming the economies of the Gulf States who are already being harmed by the spill itself.

According to the  Wood Mackenzie Research and Consulting show the six month moratorium will result in the following consequences:

• The 33 drilling platforms which support some 1,400 workers, offshore and onshore will be forced to shut down

• As many as 46,200 jobs could be idled by the moratorium

• These are well-paying jobs – $5-10 million per month, per platform in lost wages

• Long-term job losses as a result of the moratorium could reach 120,000 by 2014

• The State of Louisiana estimates that the deep-water drilling suspension will result in a loss of 3,000-6,000 in-state jobs in the first 2-3 weeks and potentially more than 20,000 Louisiana jobs within the next 12-18 months.  Louisiana estimates that if the suspension of deep-water drilling activity continues for long period, the state could lose more than $20,000 in the next 12-18 months .

Boy to suck up all of those job losses we will have to have another census next year so the government can hire more temporary workers. 

Additionally, preventing offshore oil exploration makes the US more dependent on foreign oil  and reduces state revenue during a time when states have an “over-spending” problem:

• A six-month moratorium on new drilling activity could result in a loss in deepwater Gulf production of 80,000-130,000 barrels per day

• A longer-term delay could lead to a loss of oil and gas production equal to 350,000 barrels of oil per day by 2015

• 80 percent of the Gulf oil and 45 percent of natural gas come from deepwater wells

• 58 percent of the more than 7,300 active leases in the Gulf of Mexico today are in deep waters – including the 20 highest producing leases in the Gulf

• A six-month moratorium on new drilling activity could result in $120-$150 million in lost royalties to the federal government and a $300-$500 million decline in government revenue in 2011 

So if his freeze is hurting the economy why is the President going ahead with the freeze?  I submit to you that he doesn't know what else to do.  The president has been running the country be finding scape goats. During the porkulus it was the likes of Rush Limbaugh,  for cap and trade it was big oil, then the health care bill came up and it was those evil insurance companies followed by those big bad banks. This is a president who doesn't know how to lead only knows how to tear things down. Now the evil ones are BP, Big Oil, off shore drilling and anyone who thinks global warming is a fraud.  This president does not know how to lead, to build a consensus, to get people behind a program, sadly all he knows how to do, is to create barriers and call people names.


In an editorial today, the NY Daily News put it this way:

The President kept such a distance that on Day 37, he felt compelled to declare: "The federal government is fully engaged, and I'm fully engaged."

On Day 48, Obama got colloquially tougher: "I don't sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

On Day 54, the President invoked the terror attack, stating: "In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, indelibly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.

"And one of the biggest leadership challenges for me going forward is going to be to make sure that we draw the right lessons from this disaster and that we move forward in a bold way in a direction that finally gives us the kind of future-oriented - or the kind of visionary energy policy that we so vitally need and has been absent for so long."

And tonight, on Day 56, after returning from his fourth trip to the gulf region, the President is scheduled to address the nation from the Oval Office, delivering his first talk there, as a way to emphasize the gravity of his interest.

The real problem is that 56 days into this crisis America is beginning to realize what some of us knew from the beginning, the man they elected to be President because he was a leader and a unifier, is like the Emperor with the new clothes, he nothing but a fraud.

jjj