Story here in the Washington Post. (H/T Ace of Spades)
Excerpt:
Against this backdrop, the federal government unwisely chose to add insult to injury by decreeing a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the gulf. This ill-advised and ill-considered moratorium, which a federal judge called “arbitrary” and “capricious,” creates a second disaster for our economy, throwing thousands of hardworking folks out of their jobs and causing real damage to many families. Now this federal policy risks killing 20,000 more jobs and will result in a loss of $65 million to $135 million in wages each month.
To ensure that such a disaster does not happen again, should the federal government increase oversight, or require additional and better equipment or on-site federal inspectors, or even temporarily pause drilling at specific rigs for additional reviews? Of course. Could it? Of course. But by simply stopping all deepwater drilling, federal officials appear more interested in ideology and scoring political points — as they have done with the misguided cap-and-trade legislation — at the expense of Americans who derive their livelihood from the energy industry.
Let’s be clear: This moratorium will do nothing to clean up the Gulf of Mexico, and it is already doing great harm to many hardworking citizens. The effects will extend well beyond Louisiana. Since the moratorium was announced, America has already lost two rigs to foreign countries. More drilling companies are negotiating right now to work elsewhere. Every time we decrease our level of production, we make America more dependent on foreign sources of energy.
On those few occasions when our country suffers a commercial airline tragedy, we do not respond by stopping all air travel for six months. Rather, we get to work figuring out the root cause and set about trying to make air travel safer. We don’t grind everything to a halt and put tens of thousands of people out of work, jeopardizing our economy.
And these jobs are typically male jobs, so you really undermining the man’s role as protector and provider in the family when you go after jobs typically done by men. And I’m sure that some of the foreign countries we buy oil from are not sympathetic with American national security and foreign policy.
What about Paul Ryan?
But Jindal’s not the only one making sense in the news. (H/T Hot Air)
I hope that Bobby Jindal and Paul Ryan run for President in 2012. Ryan is passionate and informed about the budget, and Jindal is passionate and informed about business and job creation. Let’s elect some grown-ups, and get back to the 4.5% unemployment rate that we had under George W. Bush.
