Economic Damage of Drilling Ban May Dwarf Oil Spill

[IScreamSundays]

Source: businessweek

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- The economic damage from the BP Plc spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be dwarfed by the Obama administration’s moratorium on deep-water drilling, the chief executive officer of a New Orleans business group said.

The six-month drilling ban, which the U.S. Interior Department revised today following lawsuits from local businesses, may affect as many as 24,000 jobs in Louisiana, Michael Hecht, president and CEO of economic-development group Greater New Orleans Inc., told a presidential commission today.

“Rigs were starting to leave” to drill in other nations, Hecht told reporters after testifying to the commission created by President Barack Obama last month. “The economic impact from the oil spill itself, however broad and long-lasting, will likely be dwarfed by the impact from the moratorium.”

Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., the largest U.S. deep-water oil driller, plans to move two rigs from the Gulf because of the moratorium and regulatory uncertainty, President and CEO Larry Dickerson told the commission. The CEO of Oceaneering International Inc., a service provider for offshore drillers, told the commission that more companies may follow.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-12/economic-damage-of-drilling-ban-may-dwarf-oil-spill.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Don't let the Corexit hit ya on the ass...

[rzemanfl]

2. This shit reminds me of foreign aid in the post war period,

which was described as "They threaten to die, we threaten to let them." If the Gulf Coast states die it will not be because offshore drilling was stopped, it will be because it was STARTED.

[Hawkowl]

3. Fucking BLOW ME

These goddamn bastards probably are still lamenting the lasting devastation wreaked on Nazi Germany's economy because of all the concentration camp guard layoffs. Oh and how terrible it was for profits to Schering AG once it stopped producing the warning agent for Zyklon-B.

[IScreamSundays]

5. !

:rotflmao:

[DJ13]

4. Its a drilling ban, not a pumping from existing wells ban

The MSM really needs to make that distinction.

[Winterblues]

12. And Only DEEP water drilling, over five thousand feet.

Only thirty four rigs would be effected, out of almost four thousand existing wells that are currently pumping through the pipeline..There is no way in hell more than a few hundred workers would be effected, if even that many..

[boppers]

21. Nope. Not just deep water.

That was the old ban, he new ban is for any well, in any water depth, where blowout and cleanup is possible, until the current one is stopped and cleaned up.

[juajen]

6. BS, pure BS. Another case for deregulation. JOBS?

At what damn cost. We are not even sure we can save the Gulf, yet the bastards want to keep drilling indiscriminentely? Pure idiocy! Well, it's already poisoned, let's just pour some more on. There might be some whales or dolphins that aren't dead yet; they just don't belong in an oil pool. Swimming, anybody?

[HockeyMom]

7. Drilling jobs versus fisherman and tourist related jobs

It seems to me the former pales in comparison, especially in a state like Florida which is totally driven by the tourists, retiree, snowbird related industry.

I hear so many locals talking about jobs lost because of lost oil rig jobs (irrelevant to begin with in Florida), as opposed to Mom and Pop marine life, or tourist related industry.

Talk about cutting off your nose to spit your face.

[pitohui]

9. drilling jobs pay well, tourism jobs pay shit

people in louisiana do support the drilling, i support it, and not because i'm a wingnut, plenty of good democrats support the drilling, like i'd guess the MAJORITY of people around here

tourist jobs are min. wage plus tip jobs, they are not "good" jobs that you can support a family on unless the whole damn family is working...

many families are torn because, yes, they have both fishers/shrimpers/oystercatchers in the family AND oil rig workers in the family...but you can't ask people to give up good jobs on a oil rig so that they can bus tables in a restaurant, that is so destructive

oil is valuable, so valuable that we have soldiers dying in foreign wars in the middle east, in part to protect free access to these resources...how can anyone w. a conscience say we'll just sit on our oil and not produce it and give up other people's lives to get it elsewhere? if it's too dangerous to drill oil here, what are we saying when we say, oh but it's OK to drill over there and take their oil? we're saying their lives are of less value, aren't we?

i don't think it's so simple as "offshore drilling bad, tourism good," tourism can be shitty and exploitive, and offshore drilling can provide a valuable product plus good jobs ... it is a job worth doing in my humble opinion

i would still, with all this grief, drill for oil, than kill mountains for coal


drilling for oil was not a bad, evil thing to do, it's a good and useful thing to do, we just need to do it w. more care and believe you me after all this, bp and the rest are GOING to be v. careful

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[DCBob]

10. This will be the GOP talking point from now until election day.

They will blame Obama for not doing enough and for doing too much... depending on who is listening. Assholes.

[hedgehog]

11. Who is working on those drill rigs now? How many will follow the rigs and send money home?

[fascisthunter]

13. lol... and Martians will abduct all children

[HCE SuiGeneris]

14. Jim Snyder is a POS

To contact this POS:

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Snyder in Washington at [e-mail]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at [e-mail]

[MadMaddie]

15. The Oil industry just hasn't outsourced these American jobs

yet to cheaper workers....before this disaster it was only a matter of time.

The Gulf states dependence on this industry is one sided and shame on those states for not thinking strategically ahead and trying to bring other industries into their states.

How many of these deep water disasters will it take before they actually smell the death of those gulf states?

This ban is on a small % of wells the deep water wells.

[w4rma]

16. Bull. (nt)

[defendandprotect]

17. We not only need to get rid of the offshore rigs .. . we need to get rid of capitalism . . .

This is the "screw you" attitude we've seen since Earth Day and its revelations

and Global Warming -- "we'll take our business elsewhere" -- and Congress didn't

move to control this flight of capital.

It's capitalism which has brought us this fatal pollution and destruction of nature --

how long are we going to worry about losing it?

Grab some seashells and we'll start a new economy/trading system --

And lock the barn doors!

[wordpix]

19. let's throw out legalized election bribery i.e. campaign donations, too

[defendandprotect]

20. Sometimes it's almost as though no one recalls that campaign funds are bribery . . .

and that computers are hackable!!

Thom Hartmann said a week or two ago that he's been told that it is a taboo

issue with Dems -- compute voting and corrupted elections -- because they think

that if they start to talk about the issue and Democrats begin to think the

system is corrupted and unrealiable they will stay home and not vote!!



:evilgrin:

[wordpix]

18. what do we expect from the CEO of a(n) (oil) business group

:nopity:

[Downtown Hound]

22. Right, and the economic damage from doing something about global warming would be "too great"

And the cost of having to install basic safety measures on your well would be "too great" also. Let's just let business do what it wants because the alternative costs are "too great."

Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah, always.