WASHINGTON. D.C. – As the White House moves to appeal a federal judge’s ruling to block the Administration’s six-month moratorium on new deep-water oil and gas drilling projects, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA), who was briefed last week by Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Watson, BP, MMS, EPA and NOAA at Unified Area Command in New Orleans, called on the Administration to put forward a comprehensive and actionable plan to replace and retain the thousands of jobs that would be displaced should their appeal be successful:

“Unified Area Command made it very clear to me that should the moratorium stay in place, the Gulf region is in danger of losing tens of thousands of jobs permanently as companies are already actively considering moving operations to other areas in the world.  It is both cold and irresponsible to pursue a course of action that could put so many working families in the position of permanently losing their jobs without putting forward a viable plan of action that protects their livelihoods and preserves their way of life.

“The politics of this crisis should not result in the permanent loss of tens of thousands of American jobs.  In the State of Louisiana alone, where one-in-three jobs is related to the oil and natural gas industry, the moratorium will cripple their economy and leave thousands of families without income.  The President faces a decision to either let these jobs permanently leave the Gulf Region resulting in irreparable economic harm or pursue an immediate avenue that can put these well-operators back to work without drilling in high-pressure zones that aren’t safe.”

The moratorium was put in place based on a report from the U.S. Department of Interior in which the report claimed to have been peer-reviewed by seven experts.  Following the release of the report, five of the seven experts and the National Academy of Engineering came forward and publicly denied recommending or supporting the moratorium warning that the moratorium “will have immediate and long term economic effects.”

To date, more than 41,000 people have joined the Gulf Economic Survival Team (GEST) and signed the petition calling on the President to end the drilling moratorium.   The Louisiana Department of Economic Development estimates that the active drilling suspension alone will result in a loss of 3,000 to 6,000 Louisiana jobs in the first two to three weeks and more than 10,000 jobs within a few months.  Just the state alone is at risk of losing more than 20,000 existing and potential new jobs during a 12 to 18 month period.

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