Election Gitters Cause Obama Administration to End Gulf Deep Water Drilling Moratorium

With the towering tsunami for Democrat office holders rapidly approaching, the Obama Administration ended the Gulf of Mexico ban on deep water drilling.  This is window dressing, a classical socialist Potemkin village, to divert the American voter's attention away from a jobs-killing and over-seas oil price boosting policy of the Obama administration. 

The Gulf of Mexico produces about 30% of American oil production.  The Obama administration has been very effectively reducing new American oil production since it took over by refusing permits to drill and by refusing leases on federally controlled onshore and offshore areas.  The huge tracts of Western federal land have seen a large reduction in oil and gas drilling due to Obama policy.  The shallow water (less than 500 foot depth) drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has been brought to a standstill since few platforms have been able to get their drilling permits approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for a long time, despite no moratorium in place to prevent such shallow water drilling.  A study by Southern Methodist University shows that the low 10 to 15 permits a month approved prior to the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, has slowed to about a dozen total since then.  This is only about 2 per month and has left many shallow water platforms idle.  The Obama administration has halted the exploration for oil off the Alaskan coast as well.  In 2009, the federal government issued fewer leases for oil and gas than in any year under Clinton or Bush.  Leasing in 2010 appears to be occurring at a similarly abysmally low rate.

A report in the Wall Street Journal of 13 October 2010 says that the government estimates that the new deep water drilling regulations will cost oil and gas drillers an additional $183 million per year.  One always has to wonder what multiplier well above 1.00 should be used to estimate a more realistic cost.  The Interior Department is issuing a raft of new drilling requirements and plan to keep issuing more requirements.  The drilling companies have understand the new requirements and plan on how to comply.  They have to submit the compliance plans to the "over-worked" Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and wait for a yea or nay.  Then as each additional requirement comes along, they have to stop drilling and resubmit a new plan for a permit.  It is expected that many drillers will not be able to afford this and will leave the Gulf, as some have already.

Democrats are as interesting as their symbolic asses in their odd behavior.  They increasingly talk about wanting to cut back on our use of fossil fuels so we will not have to import so much oil.  They propose carbon taxes on this basis as well as in the name of the failed catastrophic man-made CO2 emissions global warming hypothesis.  As more and more people are becoming aware that man-made global warming is a myth, the socialists (Progressives) are using the false idea of energy independence or self-sufficiency as the justification for energy taxes and restrictive mandates.  Yet, at every turn, they oppose any effective attempt to generate more energy in America itself.  They oppose oil drilling and coal mining.  They oppose the development of shale oil deposits out West and they oppose the use of the new rock fracturing process to extract gas from large areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.  They even oppose the ineffective, but highly touted, wind and solar power generator plants on environmental grounds in a great many instances.  Of course, they also oppose nuclear power plants as well.  It is of little concern to them that this energy policy is highly self-contradictory.  Such is the way demagogues think, except that this is really a refusal to think.

Democrats Bludgeon Jobs in the Gulf and the Oil & Gas Industries

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, says the government mandate against deep water wells in the Gulf of Mexico will cost 175,000 jobs each year until 2035.  The American Petroleum Institute represents 400 oil and gas companies.  The industry provides 9.2 million jobs and produces 7.5% of the U.S. GDP.  In June 2010, the number of Americans employed was down to a mere 140.0 million, so 9.2 million oil and gas provided jobs is 6.6% of the workforce.  Since these workers produce 7.5% of the GDP, they are clearly more productive than the average worker.  Other consequences of the Democrat vendetta against deep water oil and gas production are:

• A reduction of GDP by more than $20 billion per year.
• A cumulative GDP reduction of $500 billion by 2035.
• U.S. oil production reduced by 27%.
• Oil imports up by 19%.
• The cost to import oil to replace lost production through the end of 2011 will be $10 billion.
• The oil and gas industry is half of all Gulf of Mexico economic activity or $234 billion.  Companies hurt by the oil moratorium may be bankrupted or fail, causing jobs in the Gulf states to die.  Some companies will move away to other areas of the world.
• The Gulf of Mexico produces 30% of our domestic oil production and 12% of natural gas production.
• An oil rig platform provides up to 1,400 jobs with wages totaling $10 million per month.
• The 33 oil rig platforms pay out $300 million per month in pay.
• A 6-month moratorium on deep water drilling will cost 50,000 jobs and about $2 billion in lost wages related to the oil drilling platforms themselves.

But, you are not to worry.  If your job is lost, the Democrats are happy to make you a ward of the state.  They will extend your unemployment benefits and transfer wealth from private sector workers to you.  Of course, eventually, they tell you, you will have a green job in alternative energy.

Worry, if you are one of those just over half the population who pay income taxes, while struggling to retain your job in this largely government-induced recession.  Then even as your energy costs are driven higher by the Democrat unreasoning hatred for fossil energy, you will get to take on higher taxes, watch your assets further depreciate, worry about retaining your job in the ever more burdened private sector, and wonder how bad the future will be with fewer and fewer productive workers and more and more moochers.

Oh, on those green jobs, you will be better off investing in the Brooklyn Bridge.  It at least exists.  It even has a reason to exist.

Life goes on, but sometimes our government ensures it is a whole lot rougher than it needs to be!