Toro
Diamond Member
I think this generally displays the cluelessness of the administration.
Administration Foresaw 23,000 Lost Jobs from Drilling Ban - WSJ.com
One might understand a moratorium during an economic boom, but shutting down an industry during one of the worst economic recessions is dumb.
I get that the administration wants to avoid another disaster but the odds of another such mishap are extremely small, unless they had some tangible evidence that another explosion was highly probable. But I haven't seen that. The costs of shutting down the industry relative to the probability of another disaster isn't worth it, given that it is so difficult to get a job right now.
Senior Obama administration officials concluded the federal moratorium on deepwater oil drilling would cost roughly 23,000 jobs, but went ahead with the ban because they didn't trust the industry's safety equipment and the government's own inspection process, according to previously undisclosed documents.
Marcia McNutt, an Obama administration science adviser, commented on the corporate culture of BP in a memo sent to Michael Bromwich, the administration's new top offshore oil exploration regulator, on June 28.
Critics of the moratorium, including Gulf Coast political figures and oil-industry leaders, have said it is crippling the region's economy, and some have called on the administration to make public its economic analysis. A federal judge who in June threw out an earlier six-month moratorium faulted the administration for playing down the economic effects.
After his action, administration officials considered alternatives and weighed the economic costs, the newly released documents show. The Justice Department filed them in a New Orleans court this week, in response to the latest round of litigation over the moratorium.
Spanning more than 27,000 pages, they provide an unusually detailed look at the debate about how to respond to legal and political opposition to the moratorium.
They show the new top regulator or offshore oil exploration, Michael Bromwich, told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that a six-month deepwater-drilling halt would result in "lost direct employment" affecting approximately 9,450 workers and "lost jobs from indirect and induced effects" affecting about 13,797 more. The July 10 memo cited an analysis by Mr. Bromwich's agency that assumed direct employment on affected rigs would "resume normally once the rigs resume operations."
Asked to comment, a White House spokesman said the administration "well understood, and understands, the enormous importance of oil and gas to the region's economy," but the potential economic risks from another spill to other elements of the Gulf economysuch as fishing and tourismalso informed the administration's deliberations, "especially as spill-response resources were fully engaged to address the BP Deepwater Horizon spill." A spokesman for the Interior Department declined to comment on the documents. An American Petroleum Institute spokesman said the documents show "the government itself understood there would be significant impacts felt throughout the region." ...
Administration Foresaw 23,000 Lost Jobs from Drilling Ban - WSJ.com
One might understand a moratorium during an economic boom, but shutting down an industry during one of the worst economic recessions is dumb.
I get that the administration wants to avoid another disaster but the odds of another such mishap are extremely small, unless they had some tangible evidence that another explosion was highly probable. But I haven't seen that. The costs of shutting down the industry relative to the probability of another disaster isn't worth it, given that it is so difficult to get a job right now.