[StBernard] Lift Obama's deepwater moratorium

[Westley Annis]

Team,

Louisiana has been witnessing a severe lack of urgency and understanding from the Obama Administration and BP. Our state and our way of life continue to be under attack from the devastating oil spill, and now to make matters worse, President Obama’s has imposed a moratorium and shut down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Unless we lift Obama’s moratorium, it could kill thousands of Louisiana jobs.

Rigs won’t wait idly for six months, they’ll move overseas to places like West Africa or Brazil and take jobs with them. I have called on President Obama to replace his recently announced shutdown of deepwater rigs for immediate rig safety inspections.

This moratorium is estimated to kill up to 10,000 Louisiana jobs and possibly 20,000 jobs throughout the course of the year. Our workforce and economy have been significantly impacted from the oil spill, but Obama’s offshore moratorium could threaten potential revenue for Louisiana and be even more devastating.

Watch one of my recent CNN interviews discussing the President’s offshore moratorium. <http://blog.davidvitter.com/2010/06/senator-vitter-lift-obamas-moratorium/> 

 <http://blog.davidvitter.com/2010/06/senator-vitter-lift-obamas-moratorium/> 	 

Obviously we need to get our hands around exactly what went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon and develop new technologies and procedures to make sure it never happens again. But, the Obama Administration’s proposal to shut down the Gulf is a crazy leap and will send thousands of Louisianans to the unemployment line at a time when our state is already economically reeling from the oil spill. 

A bit of good news came this week when additional sand berms to protect the coasts and marshes were approved. I had sent a letter to BP earlier demanding  they commit to funding additional emergency barrier islands. This is a step in the right direction and I will now be pushing the Corps to get multiple dredges here in days, not weeks. I will also continue to fight to get approval for the entire barrier island plan.

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Sincerely,

David Vitter