"Parish official to Obama: Stop moratorium on drilling"

[Clio the Leo]

Between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Or as the kids call it, "screwed either way!" Raise your hand if you want to be President this week!

"Parish official to Obama: Stop moratorium on drilling"

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 29, 2010 1:35 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- A Gulf Coast official is pleading with President Barack Obama to scrap the moratorium on new oil drilling and exploration as the investigation of the massive oil spill continues, saying the economic impact to her Louisiana parish would be too much to bear.

Charlotte Randolph, president of LaFourche Parish, said she spoke to Obama in person during his visit to the oil-stricken region Friday.

"I expressed to the president that we are dying because of the oil spill, but if he allows this suspension to happen it will kill us," she told reporters Saturday, noting that her parish has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

"First I'm hearing from fisherman who are dying because of the oil spill," she said. "Now I'm hearing from the oil and gas industry and all of those associated services that they will be put out of business."

Obama's tour of the oil damage along the Gulf Coast came a day after he announced steps to limit new oil drilling and exploration during the oil spill. The president said he is "fully engaged" and ultimately responsible for what he called a catastrophe.

The new steps, announced Thursday, were in response to a report on the Gulf spill by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that Obama ordered last month. Salazar briefed Obama and senior advisers on the report Wednesday night.

Obama said the government would seek aggressive new operating standards and requirements for offshore oil companies. For now, he said, the government was suspending planned oil exploration of two locations off the coast of Alaska, canceling pending lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and a proposed lease sale off Virginia, and halting for six months the issuance of new permits for deep-water wells.

Obama called the steps part of a broader government response to prevent a similar catastrophe from happening again.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/29/oil.spill.drilling/

U.S. President Barack Obama and Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph survey damage along the Louisiana coastline at Fourchon Beach caused after a BP oil line ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico, May 28, 2010.

[AmericaIsGreat]

1. Woooow

Oil and gas industry and all of those associated services will be put out of business? Yeah fucking right.

[MH1]

10. and lots of people who have jobs in the oil industry

but I guess they don't matter.

I am not pro drilling. I spent big $$$ on geothermal HVAC for my house and my next car will be at least a hybrid, hopefully pluggable. I've been using canvas shopping bags since WAY before it was cool. But sheesh, you don't just shut off thousands of people's livelihoods without thinking about the repercussions, do you?

[AmericaIsGreat]

14. In what industry?

New drill site exploration? This moratorium is for new drilling and exploration. There is no way in hell that industry is going to collapse because of a 6 month moratorium.

Anyway, I have thought of the repercussions and exactly how to resolve them: BP. Put it on their tab; they caused a moratorium on new drilling so they can pay the people affected by that moratorium for loss of income.

[The Magistrate]

2. That, Ma'am, Is Industrial Strength Stupid

Just to be downwind of it will drop an IQ by three points an hour....

[TheKentuckian]

3. That's hard core weapons grade stoopid, Sir

Some of our "best and brightest" are so dim that they wouldn't be able to go through an open door without the aid of an army of handlers.

[Phx_Dem]

4. What contradictory and asshat statement.

We're dying because of the oil, but we'll die without the oil! DO SOMETHING!

:eyes:

[MH1]

11. they need to consider the jobs that will be lost

and how they can mitigate the repercussions.

I'm all for the moratorium but I'd like to see some taxes/fines whatever used to raise the money to transition the workers who lose jobs into other employment.

[Jennicut]

5. The LA politicians, both Dems and Repubs, are tied to the oil

industry in an incredible way. So while they whine at Obama to do something...NOW!...they can't have it both ways. And we will not stop drilling entirely as our economy depends immensely on oil and I don't see any alternatives in place yet. But new drilling does not need to be done until real regulations are in place and deep sea drilling should be looked at as near banned unless there are relief wells built along with the oil wells. BP was allowed to get away with cutting corners because of gutted regulations and this Parish President wants more of that? Nothing upstairs, I tell ya.

[xxqqqzme]

6. Then it is time to wean themselves off the fossil

fuel. This is an 'industry' that cannot survive. To prtend that it will or can is so shortsighted. I would like to think these people would be looking to the future - not the past.


I worked in the fossil fuels industry until '91 (both coal & oil). I got out because there was no future. In '91 it was dying w/ only spurts of last gasps.

[Jennicut]

7. Oh, it is dying. The easy oil is gone. But we stupidly have little in place

to take over. No one is being serious about it and Obama has an opportunity to at the very least get the public to think about it. Some politicians are so tied to the coal, oil and gas industries that they simply don't care about alternative energy. But the public may and the public may put pressure on some of these politicians. It is at least worth a try.

[ProSense]

8. Jindal, Landrieu, all of them.

They want it both ways.

[Jennicut]

9. Jindal is a total hypocrite and I have been disappointed to see some on DU

defending his criticism of Obama. He wanted sand berms built that could hurt another state and is being pissy about it with the Army Corps of Engineers and Obama. Guess what? Hayley Barbour says he trusts the Army Corps of Engineers agreeing to only a few being built. Bobby Jindal also once wanted no volcano monitoring. Funny how he screams for help from the govt. now. And don't get me started on Landreiu...a poor excuse for a Dem.

[Karenina]

12. That's all just chatter. The Gulf Coast has a stage *5* colon cancer.

It was on shit shape BEFORE this happened. Louisiana, like the Federal Gubmint, has ALWAYS acquiesced to Big Oil. There were EIGHT YEARS (and decades) of acquiescence and neglect BEFORE this "accident."

Losing Louisiana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQcPOQXc9vE

[Peacetrain]

13. Not me kiddo..not me.. there is not enough money in the world

that I would want to take on that thankless job

[grahamhgreen]

15. I wonder how much BP paid her to say that!