It will be years before Louisiana totes up all of the terrible effects of Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But the damage Louisianans suffer if a federal court approves President Obama’s six-month offshore drilling moratorium could well be much worse. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., estimates that as many as 38,000 jobs will be lost in the first four months alone, with more than 12,000 of those disappearing in just two parishes, Lafayette and St. Martin.
Other estimates of jobs that will become casualties of the Obama moratorium are even higher. The National Ocean Industries Association estimates that “for each platform idled by the work stoppage, up to 1,400 jobs are at risk, and lost wages could reach $10 million per month per platform and up to $330 million per month for all 33 platforms.” Thus a six-month ban on drilling would mean nearly $2 billion in lost wages and nearly 50,000 lost jobs.
