Feds: Minimal impacts from drilling moratorium

[cory777]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The deep-water drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico has not increased unemployment in the region, says a new report from the Obama administration that was immediately disputed by Louisiana lawmakers.

The report, released at a Senate hearing Thursday, said the moratorium imposed after the BP oil spill might have temporarily cost 8,000 to 12,000 jobs on oil rigs and elsewhere. But it found no net job loss in the region, thanks in part to a big hiring push for cleanup crews and massive spending by BP on the recovery effort.

The scenario is far rosier than described in some previous reports, including an Interior Department estimate over the summer that said there could be 23,000 jobs lost from the moratorium.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a leading critic of the moratorium, attacked the report and said the "heavy hand of the federal government" was placing thousands of jobs in the Gulf at risk.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100916/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_moratorium

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http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[alstephenson]

1. Well you wouldn't know that from what Mary Landrieu was spouting this morning.

She was having a conniption about the moratorium on Morning Joe. I had to turn the TV off.

[Stumbler]

2. Reminds me of the Greenpeace report released earlier this summer

It essentially stated that the East Coast Atlantic states generate far more revenue from tourism, fishing and shipping than they would create from extracting ALL of the known available oil reserves off their coasts. Considering what happened in the gulf this summer, the tourism industry has suffered more from the spill than the oil industry has by this moratorium.