Salazar Defends Deepwater-Drilling Moratorium - I Still Think Moratorium is Unnecessary
Read the article for the defense of the moratorium, including this from New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez:
“We want to see much more than a pause,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) told Mr. Salazar, warning of damage to tourism industries along the Atlantic coast in the event that oil reaches the Atlantic waters.
I’m not sure how Sen. Menendez thinks it will be helpful to anybody’s tourism if there are thousands of people out of work in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama & Florida, some of whom would perhaps vacation in his area if they are employed - but won’t be taking any vacations if they are unemployed.
And in a rare occurrence, I have to applaud Sen. Mary Landrieu, who is spot on with this:
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), said that if the moratorium “lasts very much longer than a few months, it could potentially wreak economic havoc on this region that exceeds the havoc wreaked by the rig itself.”
Mr. Salazar insisted that “the importance of the jobs that are at stake here has been very much on the mind of the president and my mind as well.” He also promised Ms. Landrieu that the Obama administration would make BP pay salaries of oil-services workers who lose their jobs due to the effects of the oil spill.
Ms. Landrieu asked Mr. Salazar that if “the oil-services companies have to either go out of business or take bankruptcy or lay off classes of workers, are you going to ask BP to pick up their salaries and to make them whole?”
Mr. Salazar replied: “The answer to that is yes, we will.”
Mr. Salazar cannot force BP to hire people, or pay their salaries. I don’t know how he thinks that could be done. For one thing, if BP as a company goes under, then those folks will be unemployed as well, and then who will pay their salaries plus the oil-field employees?