Drilling Equals Jobs

Floor Speech

Mr. LANDRY. Mr. Speaker, with the free trade agreements being debated this week, some of my Democratic colleagues have been talking about our trade deficit. However, if they really want to reduce the trade deficit, they'd help me end the President's de facto moratorium on offshore drilling.

You see, if oil were a country, it would be our biggest trading partner. Oil makes up 65 percent of our trade deficit. And it's simple: Drilling equals jobs. It equals American jobs.

You see what I have here is a parking lot to one of the heliports down in my district. In 2004, the parking lot was full. Last year, the parking lot was empty. And you don't have to worry because that parking lot, when we're drilling offshore, is this full 365 days a year.

Here is a port in my district which supplies over 30 percent of the oil and gas that fuels this Nation. You can see the boats in 2004 in the busy port; and today, it's empty.

If we really want a jobs bill, this is it. In the past year, deepwater permit issuance is 39 percent below the monthly averages observed over the past 3 years; and shallow water permits, permits that were supposedly never impacted by the moratorium, are off 80 percent over historical averages. As a result of this de facto moratorium, 11 offshore rigs scheduled to drill in the gulf have relocated to countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, and Liberia.

Now, what does this say about American policies when businesses prefer the regulatory certainty offered by Egypt over the bureaucratic uncertainty off our own shores? And while 11 rigs might not seem like a lot, each drilling platform supports 200 to 300 workers every month. Additionally, each exploration and production job supports four other positions. Therefore, 900 to 1,400 jobs per idle rig platform are at risk if production does not resume as soon as possible.

Wages for those jobs average $1,800 per week, so the potential for lost wages is more than $5 million to $10 million per month, per platform.

Drilling equals good-paying jobs.

According to the Obama administration's own estimates, the 6-month ``official moratorium'' on drilling cost up to 12,000 jobs. However, the long-term impacts of the de facto moratorium could be significantly higher. A study by Louisiana State University predicts, if the de facto ban on deepwater drilling were sustained for 18 more months, we could lose 36,000 jobs nationwide, 24,000 of those along the gulf coast region alone. If the administration would accelerate the permit issuance instead of continuing this de facto moratorium, we could create a quarter of a million jobs in this country, and we could increase the GDP by $8 trillion over the next 10 years.

As I said, the solution is actually very simple--at no cost to the taxpayer and with the ability to bring revenue into the Federal Government.

It's simple, Mr. Speaker: Drilling equals jobs.

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