Cassidy Fights Obama Moratorium In House Committee

Press Release

In the Natural Resources Committee today, Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy fought against President Obama's moratorium on offshore energy production with an amendment to overturn it legislatively.

"To support this moratorium you have to ignore the evidence, the testimony of experts, and the ruinous consequences this irrational political decision will have on tens of thousands of Louisiana families," said Cassidy.

In making the case for his amendment, Cassidy asked members of the Committee, "Who are you going to believe? [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar, who's got no special training? Or [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Director Michael] Bromwich, who's an attorney and a week ago told us he didn't know enough to answer a question? Or eight experts from the National Academy of Engineering, who said, "we do not agree with a blanket moratorium … It will not measurably reduce risk further … We do not believe punishing the innocent is the right thing to do. Overcome emotion with logic.'"

"President Obama got elected saying he was going to put science before ideology. Let me ask the folks who are going to vote against this, why are you believing the attorney who didn't know anything a week ago to answer questions, or Secretary Salazar, who's not a geologist or a [petroleum engineer], as opposed to the eight scientists handpicked by the Administration to review this from the National Academy of Engineering. National Academy of Engineering? Experts? Scientists? Versus the attorney. Let me ask you, why would you choose one versus the other?"

Multiple independent studies suggest that President Obama's moratorium could be more economically devastating than the oil spill itself. As the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported recently, "Bad as the BP Gulf oil spill is, the federal government's moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling seems certain to dwarf the spill's economic pain." The report outlines specific analyses of the moratorium's devastating consequences, which range as high as 37,000 direct job losses, and goes on to note that "As layoffs spread to offshore service companies -- to caterers, mud suppliers, marine and helicopter transportors -- and then to other sectors of the state, economists say total losses will mount, month by month."

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